This is an odd play, in that the two principals in this drama never appear on stage: John Wright, (who is dead, and the cause of the investigation), and his wife, who is imprisoned on suspicion of his murder. The play opens as the Sheriff, Mr. Hale, the young County Attorney, the Sheriff''s wife, and Mrs. Hale enter the kitchen. They are looking for evidence of whether the man was murdered by parties unknown, as his wife contends, or by her. The men find nothing. The women find a dead bird in her sewing box, apparently killed by Mrs. Wright''s husband, and evidence of her upset in her nervous and disturbed sewing. They are at first unsure, but decide, nearly silently, not to tell on her, and to remove that evidence, remembering how beautiful SHE had been as a young girl, and how cruelly she had been repressed and mistreated and isolated by her husband. They feel somewhat guilty themselves for letting it happen, leaving her alone when she needed them most, because of his unpleasantness. When they identify with her and realize the pain she must have suffered in her life, they forgive her. Their husbands, meanwhile, busy themselves with IMPORTANT matters, and the wives, who occupy themselves with trifles, as the men would say--know the truth, and make real decisions. This play was written by Susan Glaspell as one of the first plays put on by the Provincetown Players, a theatre dedicated to experimental drama. She based it on an Iowa murder case she had covered as a young journalist.