Sophie Treadwell’s 1928 play was inspired by the real-life trial of Ruth Snyder, who murdered her husband and was executed for it. Treadwell’s young woman struggles to find her place in a patriarchal society. According to one critic, the play has “a beauty that cannot be conveyed in words, an aliveness and reality tinctured with poetic pathos which lift it to the realm of great art.” Heightened by cacophonous sounds and rapid dialogue, this Expressionist play highlights the mechanized qualities of 1920’s America, and is as resonant today as it was when it was written.