“The Strike at Arlingford”

Pall Mall Gazette, 21 February 1893, page 2, 1,149 words

Interview with Mr. George Moore.

“There’s absolutely no money in it whatever!" Thus Mr. George Moore to a visitor who descended upon him with questions on the subject of his new and original play to be produced to-night, at the Opéra Comique, by the Independent Theatre Society.

"Rather an unusual advance criticism from a dramatist, Mr. Moore?" — “On his own work, yes, no doubt," was the laughing reply. "But then, you know, to be financially worthless is one of the very conditions of my play's existence. Those who are interested in the matter must be tired of hearing about George Sims's 'challenge' — which, by the way, was no challenge at all, but an offer, and a very generous one, to assist the Independent Theatre in its work. The main condition was that an original English play was to be written for and produced by the Independent Theatre, of a kind that no manager, with his eyes on the 'barometer of the box-office,' could afford to produce. That condition I claim to have fulfilled."

“Will you give me an outline of the play?"

"The leading character is a young fellow, something of a poet and idealist, who, a few years before the action of the play starts, has been secretary to a lord. In this position he has found himself in love with his employer's daughter, who at seventeen returned his love, but at eighteen discovered the impossibility of marrying her father's secretary. A crisis has accordingly arisen, John Reid has been dismissed, and when the play opens he is discovered as an enthusiastic and trusted Labour leader, and the chief organizer of a strike which is proceeding at the Arlingford collieries, his Socialist zeal being stimulated by a female comrade, one Ellen Sands, under whose influence he has fallen. These collieries are the property of Lady Ann Travers, a young widow, in whom Reid, being deputed to act as the spokesman of the strikers, recognizes the girl he formerly loved. From her books Lady Ann proves to the miners' champion that concession to their demands is impossible; and, finally, having thrown his influence against the continuance of the strike, and having even withheld a cheque tor £2,000 sent by some anonymous donor, through Ellen Sands, for its support, he falls a hopeless victim to the old passion, which has reasserted itself with irresistible force on both sides. The publication of the story of his former attachment to Lady Ann completes his discredit in the eyes of those who had trusted him as their leader; and his moral collapse is complete when he stands with his paramour in the midst of luxury and looks down from the window of her drawing-room upon a starving town."

"Will not a story like this be taken as a harsh satire upon Labour leaders in general?" — "I most assuredly hope not — nothing on earth was further from my thoughts than to satirise Labour leaders. Why should I? My idea is nothing so superficial or so futile. What I have tried to do is to depict a weak man in a position too strong for him — a kind of modern Hamlet, so to speak, whose mind and resolution are overborne by his circumstances. How I have carried out my idea I leave others to say. In any case, this is my first and my last play."

Why so ?” — “Simply because I can't afford to indulge in the luxury of writing plays of the kind that I consider worth writing. This one will mean a heavy pecuniary loss to me, reckoning only the value in money, of the time it has taken me to write it. But I shall be satisfied if other novelists will follow the lead, and will ensure for us the enjoyment of at least an occasional play that is a play of life, and not something that is either farcical comedy or dramatised Family Herald. What relation has the average 'serious' play of to-day to real life? If you want fairy-tales on the stage, let them be about fairies and elves, who at any rate are interesting, and not about such prosaic people as society loungers and members of the House of Commons"

"Then you think that the playwright should be no more embarrassed in his choice of a subject, and his method of treating it, than the novelist?”  — “I think that the only two conditions that can be fairly imposed upon a playwright are — firstly, that his work should be a work of art; secondly, that it should interest. But the public, I know, don't see things in that light. For some reason which I am quite unable to understand, people will accept ideas in a novel which they won’t stand at any price on the stage. There's Tolstoi’s ‘Dominion of Darkness,' for example. Well, that wouldn't get a hearing on the stage; yet the greatest of his novels, no whit behind the play in every quality that makes the play 'impossible,' is read and admired by thousands. Then, again, there is Ibsen's 'Wild Duck,' which I regard — don't start! — as the greatest play since 'Hamlet.' That is barred, and 'Hedda Gabler,' and ‘Ghosts,' and 'Thérèse Raquin,' are produced almost under protest, and are of no pecuniary value whatever."

“But of course you can't expect managers to produce plays that the public won't pay to see?" — “Certainly not. And the worst of it is, from their point of view, that plays that are real are always those which give the best acting chances. Irving and Tree and Wyndham and the rest simply can't afford to produce fine acting plays. But that is all the more reason for the existence of a society like the Independent Theatre, which is free from such narrowing restrictions, and is the only medium for the production of more intelligent plays than those that can be handled by the ordinary theatrical manager."

“Don't you think the movement has met with adequate encouragement? " — "No; it has had to contend with a great deal of injustice. Even the more enlightened of the critics have not treated it fairly. In the case of Bernard Shaw's play, for example, the strength and merit of a really brilliant social satire were hardly recognized at all, by critics who could find all sorts of kind things to say about a 'Robin Goodfellow' and a 'Hypatia.'"

"With regard to the cast of ‘The Strike at Arlingford,' do your company  like their parts?” — “Apparently they are well satisfied. Bernard Gould will not only play John Reid well, but will look the Socialist poet to the life, and Florence West will, I believe, do great things with Lady Ann. There is never any fear that actors will not like their parts when there is a bit of human nature in them!"