Touch and Go by D. H. Lawrence

D. H. Lawrence's Touch and Go opens with a blazing preface that demands "A People's Theatre," one built on living human beings rather than slogans, class labels, or mechanical ideas of society. He argues that the struggle between Labour and Capital is not merely economic, but potentially tragic: a clash of complete personalities, deep values, and human fate. From that manifesto, the play moves into a Midlands mining village on a Sunday morning, where class tension, social change, and private wounds immediately collide. At the center is Willie Houghton, whose mocking, confrontational speeches force the miners to confront how easily they surrender freedom for wages and comfort. As labor politics, union maneuvering, and the miners' relationship to the owners come into focus, Lawrence exposes the dehumanizing machinery of industrial life. The arrival of Gerald Barlow, Oliver Turton, and Anabel Wrath shifts the drama into personal territory, where old resentments, artistic failure, fragile health, and emotional dependence surface. In the Barlows' home, conversations about wealth, guilt, sacrifice, and mine ownership reveal a family trapped between conscience and power. Lawrence turns industrial conflict, romance, and moral crisis into a searching modern tragedy. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.