Page:Emma Goldman - The Social Significance of the Modern Drama - 1914.djvu/242

 to the fore who possesses such dramatic power, realistic grasp and artistic penetration, as evidenced by Githa Sowerby.

The circumstance is the more remarkable because Githa Sawerby is, according to her publishers, barely out of her teens; and though she be a genius; her exceptional maturity is a phenomenon rarely observed. Generally maturity comes only with experience and suffering. No one who has not felt the crushing weight of the Rutherford atmosphere could have painted such a vivid and life-like picture.

The basic theme in "Rutherford and Son" is not novel. Turgenev, Ibsen and such lesser artists as Sudermann and Stanley Houghton have dealt with it: the chasm between the old and the young,- the tragic struggle of parents against their children, the one frantically holding on, the other recklessly letting go. But " Rutherford and Son " is more than that. It is a picture of the paralyzing effect of tradition and institutionalism on all forms of life, growth, and change.

John Rutherford, the owner of the firm "Rutherford and Son", is possessed by the phantom of the past - the thing handed down to him by his father and which lie must pass on to his son with undiminished Iuster; the thing that has turned his soul to iron and his heart to stone; the thing for the sake of which he has never known joy and