failure she kills the child that stands between her and all her hopes and at once expiates that action with her own death. Neither the subject nor the circumstances are new. But novelty is no mark of fine literature. The motives, the people, the place, the color of life—these are new. Every triangle play is a “Medea”. There are subjects that are classical because they are native to the character and circumstances of mankind. Such is the subject of “Goat Alley”. The structure is pure and uncompromising. No American play has had a finer or truer moment than that at the end of the second act when Lucy Belle, her lodger lost, her money stolen, her child crying with hunger, consents quietly, yet in such despair, to rent her vacant room to the worthless, ingratiating barber. Hauptmann would not have disdained that quiet moment of rich, tragic implications; Galsworthy would have approved it. No competent observer will fail to note here the evidence of an effort as serious, as intelligent, as sensitive to the character and quality of what makes tragedy as our recent theatre has produced. Ludwig Lewisohn. Ludwig Lewisohn. New York, July, 1921. [9] [9] GOAT ALLEY [10] [10] CHARACTERS Lucy Belle Dorsey Slim Dorsey Sam Reed Aunt Rebecca
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