CIVIL WAR
A Play in Four Acts
BY ASHLEY DUKES
Crown 8vo. 2s. net
A DRAMA WITHOUT ARTIFICIALITY
This play is that rarity, an English drama of ideas which is not in any sense imitative of Mr Bernard Shaw. It presents an intellectual conflict which is also a passionate conflict of individualities, and the theme is treated with sympathy and humanity. The portrait of life in a colony of revolutionists alone would make “Civil War” something of a dramatic curiosity, but it is more than that. It is at once effective and original. The play was given for the first time by the Incorporated Stage Society in June 1910, with remarkable success, and it will shortly be revived by several of our newer repertory theatres. It should be read as well as seen, however, for it is dramatic without artificiality, and literary without affectation.
The following is what some of the Press think of the play:
Pall Mall Gazette:—“A very interesting, sincere, and artistic piece of work.”
Westminster Gazette:—“In producing ‘Civil War,’ by Mr Ashley Dukes, the Stage Society has rendered a real service to drama.... The play shows that the dramatist possesses in a high degree the capacity for writing dialogue—for finding phrases characteristic of the persons of the comedy, useful for the situations, and exhibiting a certain style that is rare and indefinable. There were scenes, notably one of great beauty between the old Socialist and his daughter, where, apart from the dramatic effect, one had real pleasure from the phrases, and this without there being any obvious attempt to write in a literary style.”
Times:—“A piece of sound and promising work.”
Daily News:—“His ‘Civil War’ has a strong motive, and, best of all, there is humanity and understanding in his treatment of it.... It is rarely indeed that we are given a play in which the drama is made inevitable by a clash of temperament and ideas.”
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