The Profligate (Unabridged)

Mr. Pinero, in essaying to deal dramatically with a moral problem in a manner which, while neither cynical nor commonplace, should still be in touch with human sympathy and possible experience, appears to have deliberately set himself to conceive a group of characters, natural yet not ordinary, which should embody his ideals, and with a sufficient sense of actuality evolve the tragic recoil of sin, the dramatic pathos of innocence in contact with the irony of life, the exquisite influence of purity. Whether Mr. Pinero succeeded in carrying out his idea or not, even the severest of his critics could not deny this play respectful consideration. “A real play at last,” ...“no original English play produced on our stage for many a day has stirred its audience so deeply at the time of its representation, or has sent them home with so much to think over, to discuss and to remember.”'