6 Recklessness, however, brought a minor dividend later in O Neill s career. The script was sold to Hollywood where in 1933 it served as the basis for a film entitled The Constant Woman with Leila Hyams and Conrad Nagle. In the context of the companion works, O Neill can be seen to be weaving another web of ironic fate in which circumstances defeat the thrust for happiness. It was not worth the effort. In spite of a suggestion that the wife and chauffeur are trying to find greater freedom and dignity through love, the mechanics of the plot defeat them without providing them love with a vestige of significance.
Abortion is more ambitious.
The scene is an unnamed eastern university, resembling Princeton which O Neill had briefly attended in 1906, and the play possibly reflects some of his concern over the pregnancy of Kathleen Jenkins, whom he had married in 1909. It is not, however, an autobiographical play. Jack Townsend, the star baseball player, has seduced a poor girl from the wrong side of town. Her pregnancy has necessitated an abortion, and she has died following the operation. This news is conveyed to Jack on the evening of his greatest triumph on the baseball field.