The Detour

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THE DETOUR A drama by OWEN DAVIS


THE DETOUR
A Play in Three Acts by OWEN DAVIS

THIS great play, originally produced in New York, enjoyed a tremendous success both in that city and Chicago.  It is not often that a play reaches such great dramatic heights and at the same time enjoys so high a degree of popular approval as does THE DETOUR.  It is virile, vivid, and most absorbing in its heart interest.  Aside from its great intrinsic merit, its chief claim for success lies in the fact that its lines and action portray a section of American life that is most universally known and appreciated.

It is a story of a small American home.

Stephen Hardy, the father, is a small truck farmer.  He is beset by taxes and debts.  His all-absorbing ambition is to secure enough money to buy additional land.  The family, therefore, is constantly in great need of the most simple pleasures and luxuries of life.

Helen, his wife, who had been ambitious in her youth for a career, now has centered her heart's affections and her hopes upon Kate, their daughter.  The latter sometimes works in the village store and sometimes teaches school.

The mother, through her own efforts, has been able to earn some money from time to time.  For years the two have labored, and their combined earnings they have saved and kept in an old jar in the house.

Finally, the amount saved having reached a certain sum, the mother prepares to fulfill her heart's ambition of sending her daughter to the city to study art.  A tremendous need for funds arises, however, and the father, for the first time, learns of the existence of this money.

Now enters the lover in the person of the young proprietor of a garage, whose business has been ruined because a detour has taken the travel from the highway past his place.

The conflict of love between domestic life and ambition, between father, mother and daughter, and again between ambition and love, reaches a high plane of dramatic action.  Very few dramas have so succeeded in stirring the emotions as has this.  Not for a moment does its action descend to that which is cheap or tawdry, and, at the same time, there is not a second when interest flags throughout the three acts of emotional action.

This is indeed a remarkable play, and a timely play as well.  Its entertainment value is unquestionable.  Its action is so tense that it comes near to qualifying as a thriller.

The play is produced by a great metropolitan director.  The actors chosen are men and women of the highest professional standing.



CAST OF CHARACTERS

Stephen Hardy,  a truck farmer
Helen, his wife
Kate, their daughter
Dana Lamont, a New York artist
Tom Lane, proprietor of a garage
Ben Glenny, tax collector
Weinstein, a trader in furniture


Act I Mrs. Hardy's Kitchen
Act II The Veranda, that Afternoon
Act III The Kitchen, a Little Later.

Time: The Present.

Printed in U. S. A.

The Place: Near Northport, L. I.

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