IN THE DEPTHS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10014, 9 April 1910, Page 4

IN THE DEPTHS.

A most interesting and important theatrical experiment was begun the other day in London, when Mr Frohman's Repertory Theatre opened with jMr John Galsworthy's "Justice." | The idea is to produce the best plays ! of English dramatists—giving living writers every chance—to make quick changes, to employ first rate act ors and actresses. Reports show that the opening was impressive, for Mr Galsworthy's play is described as very fine indeed, and the acting was well nigh perfect. Mr Galsworthy has apparently descended to the very bottom of the pit of pessimism. His play deals with a weak law clerk, who, in a moment of strong temptation, forges a cheque to help the woman he loves, who is brutally treated by her husband. The second act is the trial, in which every detail is accurate. The third act takes the audience to the gaol, where the clerk is serving a sentence of three years' imprisonment. The realism here is described as "hideously poignant." There is no ranting, no forced note—everything is quietly natural, but it bites deep. Tne young convict walks feverishly up and down his cell, and finally flings himself hysterically on the floor, and beats wildly for release. Here the line between tragedy and melodrama must be very fine indeed,

but'Mr Galsworthy's fidelity to I nature, and the splendid acting, maintain the high note. The man comes out on ticket-of-leave, and tries to get employment, he gets work and has to leave it because his fellow clerks have found out about him. Finally his former employer promises to take him back on condition that he gives up the woman. | While they are discussing the matter i the police come id—the clerk is wan- [ ted for another forgery. The hunted creature jumps through a window and is picked up dead.. Such is "Justice," a play of brutal, cold, relentless realism, without a spark or humour, but also without cynicism. It is life as Mr Galsworthy finds it—life governed by the iron laws of our social system. "Men did not go out and talk and smoke in the usual way between the acts," says the "Daily Mail"; "we /all felt we were participators rather than paying theatregoers in the wreckage of a human life, revealed to us brutally, cruelly, sincerely, by the searchlight of an astoundingly dramatic and honest intellect."