GREAT DIVIDE, The Great Divide,) by William Vaughn Moody, is one of our most representative American dramas. It was first presented on the road under the title of 'The Sabine and was rewritten and renamed when it was produced by Henry Miller and Margaret Anglin in New York, at the Princess Theatre, on 3 Oct. 1906. The new title of the piece was symbolical of Mr. Moody's endeavor to depict a strong line between the moral freedom of Western life and character and the restrictions of a New England Puritan conscience. The London production took place at the Adelphi Theatre, on 25 Sept. 1909, with Mr. Miller in his original role of Stephen Ghent, and Edith Wynne Matthison in Miss Anglin's part of Ruth Jordan.
The opening act of 'The Great Divide) is the most convincing one of the three. It re veals Ruth Jordan as in a state of mind and in a physically susceptive condition for the com ing of Stephen Ghent, who appears before her with his drunken companions, and barters for her with a string of gold nuggets. The fact that the other men leave him alone for gold is nothingbeside the impelling force which moves Jordan ordan to go with him from her home. Impulsively she obeys the call of the wild within her, and for the remainder of the play she struggles with her New England conscience, working her fingers to the bone to buy back from the Mexican that string of gold which burns in her brain as symbol of her shame. and struggling with her love for Stephen, which grows from more to more, despite her protest mg. As for Stephen, that night's adventure has
changed his whole outlook on life. Having obeyed the lawlessness in his nature, he sud denly awakens to a moral law which comes with a great love, such as his grows to be for Ruth Jordan. There is a mean between the self denial of Ruth and the anarchy of Stephen, and in the course of the play they both find them selves in their love.
Technically, Great Divide) loses much, first by its change of scene from the West to the East, and second, because of the uncon vincing manner in which Ruth resists the true promptings of her heart. In the second act she deserts Stephen on purely Puritanical grounds, failing to recognize the bigness of the man he had become. It was • as though Mr.
Moody selected the line of least resistance,-, as though running to cover was the only way in which Ruth, with her New England up bringing, could cleanse her soul. Had she faced Stephen on his own soil, the New England tenseness would have had a deeper and more profound effect, and Ruth would have realized more poignantly the spiritual change that had come over Stephen. Nevertheless, despite its drawbacks, 'The Great Divide' is an excellent example of balance between 'poetic imagination and literary feeling for material. And dramat ically, its stage history has been distinctive.