SOURCE: “The Theatre,” in The American Mercury, Vol. 8, May, 1926, pp. 117–20.

In the following excerpt, Nathan reviews Thomas's plays and finds them contemptible.

With Still Waters, Mr. Augustus Thomas has now at length been officially lowered into the grave in which, apparently unbeknownst to the majority of writers on the American theatre, he has been peacefully resting for the last twenty-five years. In other words, it has taken American dramatic criticism just one-quarter of a century to arrive at the conclusion that Mr. Thomas, the so-called dean of our dramatists, is what he always has been: a playwright utterly without any authentic talent save the most obvious melodramatic kind. The phenomenon of the gentleman's acceptance as a dramatist of quality is one of the most fetching instances of comic relief in the opera bouffe of American criticism. That he possessed any sound dramatic gifts was, of course, palpably absurd...