Arizona republican., 1910-01-09
ANOTHER GREAT SHOW BOOKED AT THE VANCE
The Great Divide Highly Literary
 Drama.

Manager Vance Is at last to give
 our playgoers treat toward which
 they have been looking for many
 months, William Vaughn Moody's
 brilliant drama of American life. "The
 Great Divide" the 'long awaited
 great American play" as New York
 has pronounced it, at the opera house
 for an engagement of one night only
 on Saturday January 15. Until re-
 gently it seemed that this city would
 have to foreso the pleasure of seeing
 The Great Divide for several months
 longer or until next season, for the
 play last year repeated at the Acade-
 my of Music it's metropolitan triumph
 of the year previous at the Princess
 and Dalvs theaters and could have
 remained there indefinitely. When
 MT. Miller preached the subject of
 cancelling the. contracts held by the managers here and in several other
 cities, the latter assured him of the
 extraordinary demand for the play
 and he decided not to .disappoiBt any
 longer the big public outside of New York. and So at last a road tour has , been booked. This truly remarkable play furnishes a phenomenon almost
 unknown to American theatrical his tory. Although pronounced great
 drama" and fine literature" by the | leading critics it has been a record breaking financial success. which Is
 very unusual with the higher order of really literary" dramas to which The
 Great Divide" belongs. The play proves theory always held by Henry Miller that art and commerce in the i theater are not only incompatible, but
 they can and should go hand in hand. Mir. Moody. The Great Divides au-
 thor. is America's foremost younger
 poet His plays. ''The Masque of
 Judgment and The Fire Bringer." written in the old Greek mode. have | fixed his place in English literature for Fall time to come. The Great Divide" [ being the first modern prose drama | from his pen, has given him an even
 more prominent position among con
 temporary dramatists. The subject
 treated by MT Moody in "The Great ] Divide" naturally is the best one up-
 on which a vitallv interesting play can be written-the mutual love and romance of q man and woman. The vital interest of this play lies in the strikingly original vet thoroughly log ical and convincing way in which the | theme is treated. The man, Stephen Ghent, a leading male character, is q son of the mountains and plains, ' fearless and care-free product of the i boundless west The woman. Ruth ! Jordan, the heroine of the story is a | daughter of a circumscribed com
 munity of an old civilization and culz~ ture. These strangely contrasted na- | lures. bv that mysterious law of hu-
 man attraction and repulsion that can
 not be explained in words but which | is as fateful as the movement of the
 universe. are drawn to each other and 1 held together ineXorablv to the end. | But before their romantic and marital relations are adjusted and their lives harmonized. there is period of in- ! tolerance and antipathy representing that evolution of mutual soul-awaken- | ing and mental development which ! forms the heart of MT. Moodys drama. The settings of the play are singu- larly appropriate to its subject mat ter. The first scene represents modest ranch house in Arizona: the second Dlateau-"the roof of the
 world"- high up in the Cordillera
 mountains; the third. the parlor of an
 old colonial home in Milford Corners, Massachusetts The splendid scenic investiture and the painstaking pre- sentation help to emphasize the key note of the play-the spirit of the un- trammelled nest in conflict with the
 spirit of the established east Mir. Mil
 Ter has provided carefully selected company to present The Great Di-
 vide" here with the splendid produc-
 tion precisely as given for over 600
 nights before leaving New York Prices s1.50 and s1 for reserved seats