Page:The Captive by Édouard Bourdet and Arthur Hornblow Jr.pdf/14

 a dramatic production are of far greater importance than the details of the subject-matter.

Not that M. Bourdet has cloaked his drama under the sanctimony of the crusader's armor. If one may judge by the haunting impression left by the grim performance, M. Bourdet is interested, not in the details of his theme, but in their illumination of human character; and he is by that sign preeminently a dramatist. None of the soul-flagellations of a Rousseau or a Strindberg alleviates the horror by distributing the blame among gods and men, or by sighing over the sensual temptations or the squalor. Choosing a Greek theme M. Bourdet treats of it, if not in the classical manner, then in the modern counterpart to that tragic inevitability. In fine, the play approaches its subject objectively. And since M. Bourdet understands his characters through and through, his conclusion is foreordained. In reading it we have no feeling that he is shaping it to prove an arbitrary thesis, or to lead his characters through theatrical adventures for lurid effects. So "The Captive" moves swiftly through three long acts; even before the nature of the malady is defined in the second act, doom swims over the play like a thick, black cloud.

Although, as the reader will soon discover, the occasion for "The Captive" is the fact of an abnormal relationship between two women, the interest is solely in its revelation of character. M. Bourdet has described his people as ordinary well-bred human beings, whatever their failings may be. Irene's tenderness towards her little sister, and her own humil-