In the hierarchy of the American theatre during the 1920s and 1930s, none stood higher than Philip Barry. No praise seemed adequate to hail his first professionally produced play, You and I on Broadway in 1923. Because the roster of his contemporaries reads like a "Who's Who in the Theatre"--Maxwell Anderson, S.N. Behrman, George S. Kaufman, Elmer Rice, Robert E. Sherwood--one is compelled to seek some explanation for Barry's extraordinary rise to prominence and his subsequent descent from that dramatic peak. At his best, Barry was a master puppeteer. Reading the accolades, the seasonal conferring of superlatives upon many of his plays, it is difficult to understand why, just three decades after Barry's death, he is the least known and perhaps most neglected of the galaxy of playwrights that dominated the American stage fifty years ago. His comedic efforts were widely applauded, but his serious works--works that...