An American Tragedy

Clyde Griffiths, the son of a fantastically religious mother and father, has been brought to work in his uncle's factory. This branch of the Griffiths family is rich and snobbish and Clyde suffers at the hands of his Aunt and his cousins, but he goes to work in the factory and minds his own business. Sondra, a wealthy girl, meets him at his uncle's house and takes an interest in him. She begins to invite him out and so his relatives are forced to recognize him as their social equal. Clyde falls in love with Sondra and she with him, and they plan to get married. But Clyde has involved himself with a girl in the factory, and she is about to have a child. Fearing that Sondra will find out about it, he takes the girl to a lake and when the boat turns over she is drowned. Clyde is brought to trial and convicted and sentenced to death, although he claims until the very last that it was an accident. This play offers opportunities for imaginative staging and acting.