BRIDE OF THE LAMB

   William Hurlbuts turgid drama opened on 30 March 1926 and ran for 103 performances at the Greenwich Village Theatre. When a charismatic tent evangelist visits a conservative Midwestern town, Ina (played by Alice Brady) becomes dissatisfied with her life as the wife of a secret alcoholic and mother of an obnoxious daughter. Planning to run off with the preacher (revealed to be a former vaudevillian), she poisons her husband. Then the preacher's wife arrives and accosts him. In a denouement that prefigures Blanche Du Bois's exit at the end of A Streetcar Named Desire,* Ina has dressed herself as a bride when the sheriff comes to escort her to prison.