SOURCE: A review of “Plays for a Negro Theater,” in The New York Times, Vol. LXVI, No. 21662, April 6, 1917.

In the following excerpt, the New York Times critic reviews Torrence's Plays for A Negro Theater.

The doors of that intermittent playhouse, the Garden Theater were thrown wide once more for the first presentation here last evening of three plays by the poet and occasional dramatist, Ridgely Torrence—three plays in which he seeks to interpret the traditions, sorrows, and aspirations of the negro race, striving to speak for it in the theater as Lady Gregory, Mr. Yeats and their fellows sought to speak for the Irish. The significant factor in their present production was the decision to assemble a cast of negro players for the varied and exacting roles; and it was this decision which led—perhaps inevitably—to a disturbingly and needlessly inadequate performance. Mr. Torrence's plays are...