He begins creeping inch by inch nearer to the door. The banging sound, traveling from cell to cell, draws closer and closer; Falder's hands are seen moving as if his spirit had already joined in this beating, and the sound swells till it seems to have entered the very cell. He suddenly raises his clenched fists. Panting violently, he flings himself at his door, and beats on it."Finally Falder leaves the prison, a broken ticket-of-leave man, the stamp of the convict upon his brow, the iron of misery in his soul.
Thanks to Ruth's pleading, the firm of James How and Son is willing to take Falder back in their employ, on condition that he give up Ruth. It is then that Falder learns the awful news that the woman he loves had been driven by the merciless economic Moloch to sell herself. She "tried making skirts. . .cheap things. . . . I never made more than ten shillings a week, buying my own cotton, and working all day. I hardly ever got to bed till past twelve. . . .
And then. . .my employer happened--he's happened ever since." At this terrible psychologic moment the police appear to drag him back to prison for failing to report himself as ticket-of-leave man.
Completely overwhelmed by the inexorability of his environment, young Falder seeks and finds peace, greater than human justice, by throwing himself down to death, as the detectives are taking him back to prison.
It would be impossible to estimate the effect produced by this play.
Perhaps some conception can be gained from the very unusual circumstance that it had proved so powerful as to induce the Home Secretary of Great Britain to undertake extensive prison reforms in England. A very encouraging sign this, of the influence exerted by the modern drama. It is to be hoped that the thundering indictment of Mr. Galsworthy will not remain without similar effect upon the public sentiment and prison conditions of America. At any rate, it is certain that no other modern play has borne such direct and immediate fruit in wakening the social conscience.
Another modern play, THE SERVANT IN THE HOUSE, strikes a vital key in our social life. The hero of Mr. Kennedy's masterpiece is Robert, a coarse, filthy drunkard, whom respectable society has repudiated.
Robert, the sewer cleaner, is the real hero of the play; nay, its true and only savior. It is he who volunteers to go down into the dangerous sewer, so that his comrades "can 'ave light and air."After all, has he not sacrificed his life always, so that others may have light and air?
The thought that labor is the redeemer of social well-being has been cried from the housetops in every tongue and every clime. Yet the simple words of Robert express the significance of labor and its mission with far greater potency.
America is still in its dramatic infancy. Most of the attempts along this line to mirror life, have been wretched failures. Still, there are hopeful signs in the attitude of the intelligent public toward modern plays, even if they be from foreign soil.
The only real drama America has so far produced is THE EASIEST WAY, by Eugene Walter.
It is supposed to represent a "peculiar phase" of New York life. If that were all, it would be of minor significance. That which gives the play its real importance and value lies much deeper. It lies, first, in the fundamental current of our social fabric which drives us all, even stronger characters than Laura, into the easiest way--a way so very destructive of integrity, truth, and justice. Secondly, the cruel, senseless fatalism conditioned in Laura's sex. These two features put the universal stamp upon the play, and characterize it as one of the strongest dramatic indictments against society.
The criminal waste of human energy, in economic and social conditions, drives Laura as it drives the average girl to marry any man for a "home"; or as it drives men to endure the worst indignities for a miserable pittance.
Then there is that other respectable institution, the fatalism of Laura's sex. The inevitability of that force is summed up in the following words: "Don't you know that we count no more in the life of these men than tamed animals? It's a game, and if we don't play our cards well, we lose." Woman in the battle with life has but one weapon, one commodity--sex. That alone serves as a trump card in the game of life.
This blind fatalism has made of woman a parasite, an inert thing.
Why then expect perseverance or energy of Laura? The easiest way is the path mapped out for her from time immemorial. She could follow no other.
A number of other plays could be quoted as characteristic of the growing role of the drama as a disseminator of radical thought.
Suffice to mention THE THIRD DEGREE, by Charles Klein; THE FOURTHESTATE, by Medill Patterson; A MAN'S WORLD, by Ida Croutchers,--all pointing to the dawn of dramatic art in America, an art which is discovering to the people the terrible diseases of our social body.
It has been said of old, all roads lead to Rome. In paraphrased application to the tendencies of our day, it may truly be said that all roads lead to the great social reconstruction. The economic awakening of the workingman, and his realization of the necessity for concerted industrial action; the tendencies of modern education, especially in their application to the free development of the child;the spirit of growing unrest expressed through, and cultivated by, art and literature, all pave the way to the Open Road. Above all, the modern drama, operating through the double channel of dramatist and interpreter, affecting as it does both mind and heart, is the strongest force in developing social discontent, swelling the powerful tide of unrest that sweeps onward and over the dam of ignorance, prejudice, and superstition.
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