AS THE LEAVES ((Come le foglie'). Giuseppe Giacosa (1847-1906), one of the three or four great playwrights of modern Italy, be gan as a romanticist but gradually fell beneath the spell of the social and domestic drama de veloped in France by Angier and the younger Dumas, and in Norway by Bjornson and Ib sen. As the Leaves,' produced in 1900, seems consciously reminiscent of BjOrnson's (A Bank ruptcy,' first played in 1874. Both exhibit a family grown corrupt through wealth and shaken by its loss. Whereas Bjornson is characteristically optimistic in emphasizing the regeneration of the Tjalde family through work, Giacosa depicts rather the inability of the Rosanis to cope with poverty. Giovanni Rosani finds that he has never stiffened the will of those dependent upon him, and that, in conse quence, they are blown hither and thither °as the leaves" by gusts of misfortune. His second wife lies, steals and succumbs to her fancy for a fellow artist. His son turns to gambling and consents to marry a disreputable woman in order to pay a debt. His more worthy daugh
ter struggles in vain to uplift the others and to earn a livelihood by teaching until, discouraged, she plans to take her life. But her father and the lover, her cousin, whom she has disdained, both intercept her. At last she understands the worth of this self-made cousin who alone has endeavored to assist the family in distress. She will marry him, since he at least has learned in the school of adversity to be self-sufficient. The moral purpose of the dramatist is obvious here, although not unduly accentuated. His in terest Jies in character rather than in plot. As the Leaves' has been successful upon the stage in Italy and France, and it may be read in Eng lish in an anonymous version printed in Drama (1911) and in a translation by Edith and Allan Updegraff (1913) of three of Giacosa's plays.