The Skin Game the bare knuckles battle of play by Nobel Prize winner John Galsworthy dramatically illustrates that principles are easier to maintain in principle than in reality.

Galsworthy (1867-1933), a child of the English upper classes, was fascinated by how money and patrimony consign, even confine, people to different worlds. He explored this issue in his most famous work, The Forsythe Saga , and later in the 1920s play The Skin Game.

In this Mint Theatre Company revival, James Gale is a force of nature, driving a generally excellent cast, with his pitch perfect performance as the coarse parvenu north-country industrialist Hornblower whose entrepreneurial instincts encroach on his neighbor’s – the Hillcrists - traditional privileged lifestyle.

The catalyst in The Skin Game for the declaration of war between the two families, who had lived side by side in an already uneasy détente, is Hornblower’s cavalier decision to renege on his promise not to dispossess the tenants on some property he bought from the aristocratic Hillcrist (John C. Vennema). When one of the tenants, Mr. and Mrs. Jackman (Carl Palmer/Pat Nesbit) come to Hillcrest and ask him to intervene, the gauntlet is down and the gloves are off.

Rankled by Hillcrest’s arrogance and the many snubs he and his family have had to endure since they moved into the world of the Hillcrests and their neighbors, Hornblower declares, “Ye’ve had things your own way too long…I’m the risin’ and you’re the settin’ sun.” When Hillcrest maintains that people, no matter how humble, have the right to have some say in their fate, Hornblower almost laughs and retorts, “ I never had any say in mine, till I had the brass, and nobody ever will. It’ s all hypocrisy.”

A wonderful little irony written into this social melodrama is that the Jackmans who come from Hornblower’s social class are just as negative as the aristocrats toward Horblower’s impudence of breaking through the class barrier. Pat Nesbit gives a spirited portrayal of the tenant Mrs Jackman. ”You must go, missis,” she complains. “He don’t even know our name. He’s a dreadful new man, I think, with his overridin’ notions.”

When Hornblower decides to make the Hillcrest clan feel the pinch themselves by buying the property abutting their ancestral estate to expand his pottery factory, the Hillcrest’s see their life style threatened and they quickly shed their façade of civility and probity.

The more genteel Hillcrest is a bit more squeamish to go bare knuckles against Hornblower, “All life’s a struggle between people at different stages of development, in different position, with different amounts of social influence and property. And the only thing is to have rules of the game and keep them. New people like the Hornblowers haven’t learnt those rules…”

Hillcrest’s wife Amy (brilliantly played by Monique Fowler) has no such scruples, and would have done Lady Macbeth proud. Their daughter Jill (Nicole Lowrance), caught between the two camps because of her feelings – mutually shared- for Hornblower’s younger son Rolf (Denis Butkus), sums up Amy the best, “Mother reminds me of England – always right whatever she does.” And in this case, what’s “right” is to use a tasty bit of embarrassing information that’s come her way thanks to the family’s devious and oleaginous Agent Dawker (Stephen Rowe) about the past of Hornblower’s daughter-in-law Chloe (Diana LaMar).

As the pawn abused by both sides in this no holds-barred tussle, LaMar brings a compelling poignancy to her role, particularly when her chip-off-the-old-block husband Charles (Leo Kittay), Hornblower’s older son, wants to toss her out when he discovers that his idealized spouse has feet of clay.

Although there are some creaky moments of dated melodrama in the second act, they are ably glossed over by Eleanor Reissa’s lively nuanced direction. A special nod also should go to Amy Stoller the dialects coach who did a marvelous job in helping everyone speak in the correct voice of their class or the class in which they are seeking assimilation. This was beautifully apparent when watching the Hornblower clan whose speech became more cultured with each generation and Chloe who cultivated her speech “to pass.”

The Skin Game is another Mint triumph of a good story well told but it also raises some important questions for thought about where should the line be drawn in economic development, in the respect of traditions and in people’s rights to a quality life. You will likely be discussing this play long after the curtain comes down.

“The Skin Game”

Presented by the Mint Theater Company

311 West 43^rd Street

for tickets: call 212 315-0231 or visit www.minttheater.org

Tickets are: $45

Running time approximately 2 hours and 20 minutes with one intermission

“The Skin Game” is shown Tuesday – Thursday at 7 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. with a matinees on Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m.