SOURCE: Fisher, Esther Safer. “Lascelles Abercrombie—Playwright.” Modern Drama 23, no. 3 (September 1980): 297-308.

In the following essay, Fisher discusses how Abercrombie's plays convey “symbolic realism” through his frequent use of metaphorical language and symbolic settings, as well as by choosing anti-heroic themes and characters.

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Best known as a critic and poet, Lascelles Abercrombie (1881-1938) was also a playwright deeply concerned with the state of the English theatre in the first three decades of this century. For the most part, he was adversely critical of the commercial theatre of his day, opposed to the twin evils of sentimentality and the factual treatment of contemporary social issues, what he termed “naturalism.” He wanted to create and promote plays which conveyed the type of “symbolic realism” he found in the work of two fellow Georgians, John Drinkwater and Gordon Bottomley. In Drinkwater's Cophetua, he saw “a bold attempt to break through...