Page:The Captive by Édouard Bourdet and Arthur Hornblow Jr.pdf/16

 mold of crisp, economical playwrighting. Without bothering his head too much about details of craftsmanship, without wasting time over the motivation of exits and entrances, he pursues his course vigorously to the end. As the composer contrasts his main theme with fragile, minor developments, so M. Bourdet heightens his tragedy by rippling interludes with Gisele and Françoise Meillant, fresh, charming and frank. This is M. Bourdet's first notable play; he is still in his thirties. His first play was "Le Rubicon," put on at the Théâtre Michel in 1910. During the war M. Bourdet abandoned his career as a playwright to fight in the infantry; he was wounded twice, cited three times for bravery, and given the cross of the Legion of Honor. In the trenches he met as a fellow officer a young man who was deliberately seeking death in battle as an escape from the wretchedness of his home life. This man corresponds to the d'Aiguines of "The Captive," and was the germ of the present play. The planning and writing of the tragedy occupied M. Bourdet off and on for two years. Within a year after its first appearance in Paris, "The Captive" was played in Berlin, Vienna, Budapest and New York. Mr. Hornblow's notable adaptation communicates the precise flavor of the original.

October, 1926.