The Easiest Way: Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911

In Short

Eugene Walter’s The Easiest Way (1909) is a gritty, uncompromising American drama about Laura Murdoch, an actress caught between two men and two ways of life. Supported in luxury by a wealthy benefactor, she falls in love with an idealist Western newspaperman and tries to go straight. When poverty crushes her independent theatrical ambitions in New York, she secretly reverts to her former protector to survive. Walter’s play endures as a landmark of American theatrical realism, stripping away Victorian melodramatic conventions to present a unflinching, tragic portrait of financial desperation, moral collapse, and social hypocrisy.

The Story

The drama opens at a grand country ranch perched above a Colorado canyon, where Laura Murdoch is finishing a summer stock engagement. Though she has spent years as the pampered mistress of the wealthy, pragmatic New Yorker Willard Brockton, Laura has fallen genuinely in love with John Madison, a charismatic but rough-around-the-edges Western journalist. John, who knows all about Laura's past, offers her a chance at redemption: if she returns to New York, lives honorably, and earns her own keep as an actress, he will reform his reckless life, head to the gold fields to make his fortune, and return to marry her. Brockton accepts Laura's departure with cynical calm, but he extract a strict bargain with John: if Laura ever fails on her own and comes back to Brockton, she must tell John immediately.

Six months later, Laura is trapped in a drab, cheap New York rooming house, sinking into extreme poverty. The theatrical season has failed her, her rent is three weeks overdue, and she is reduced to sharing dry biscuits and milk with an unemployed stage manager, Jim Weston. Her mercenary friend Elfie St. Clair urges her to abandon her high-minded ideals and find a rich lover, pointing out the harsh reality of a woman's options in the city. Desperate, starving, and facing eviction, Laura breaks down when Brockton visits. She surrenders to the old arrangement, letting him pay her debts and move her into an opulent hotel suite, while she hides the truth from John in her letters.

Two months pass. Laura lives in luxurious comfort as Brockton's mistress, but the strain of her secret double life wears on her. Brockton reads in the newspaper that John has struck it rich in Nevada and is heading to New York. Suspecting the truth, Brockton intercepts a telegram from John announcing his immediate arrival. Brockton confronts Laura, furious not out of jealousy, but because her deception makes him break his word of honor to John. Brockton demands that she confess to John the moment he arrives.

When John appears—full of joy, pride, and financial success—Laura panics. Unable to bear losing him, she lies, swearing she has remained faithful and independent. Believing her, John joyfully prepares to take her away to be married. Brockton enters, exposes her lies, and leaves her exposed. Devastated by her betrayal, John rejects her pleas for mercy and walks out forever. Left alone with her servant, Laura contemplates suicide with a revolver, but lacks the courage. Snatching up her flashy clothes and paint, she resolves to descend back into the Tenderloin underworld, choosing the path of least resistance.

How It Unfolds

A bargain on the canyon's edge On a Colorado terrace overlooking a two-thousand-foot drop, Laura Murdoch tells her wealthy protector, Willard Brockton, that she loves the newsman John Madison. John demands she go back to New York alone and live decently until he can make his fortune, while Brockton warns that Laura lacks the strength to endure poverty.

The crush of New York poverty Six months later in a shabby rooming house, Laura is three weeks behind on rent and starving, sharing meager crumbs with a fellow struggling theater worker. Her cynical friend Elfie urges her to trade her virtue for security, reminding her that moral ideals will not pay the landlord.

Surrender to the old life Facing immediate street eviction, Laura capitulates when Brockton arrives with ready cash, letting him pay her landlady in exchange for returning to him. She burns her written confession to John over a lamp flame, choosing financial survival over honesty.

The trap closes Living in a lavish hotel suite two months later, Laura learns John has made a fortune in Nevada and is coming to marry her. Brockton discovers Laura never told John the truth and threatens to expose her himself to keep his own word to the young Westerner.

The final lie and exposure John arrives eager to start their new life, and Laura desperately lies to his face, claiming she has lived honorably throughout his absence. Brockton breaks in to reveal her ongoing infidelity, leaving John shattered and disgusted by her deception.

Descent into the Tenderloin After John walks out forever, Laura briefly handles a revolver in despair before abandoning thoughts of death. She orders her servant to fetch her painted makeup and flashiest gown, resigning herself to a life of prostitution as a street organ plays in the background.

The People

• Laura Murdoch wants true love, respectability, and a clean slate with John Madison, but she is utterly terrified of poverty and physical hardship. Lacking real theatrical talent or inner fortitude, she crumbles under financial pressure, choosing deception to keep both material comfort and her lover. She ends the play broken, stripped of her soul, and resigned to a life of prostitution.
• John Madison wants to reform his wild, itinerant life, make a fortune in the West, and elevate Laura into his honored wife. He values absolute honesty and believes Laura has remained pure for his sake. When her lies are exposed, his romantic idealism turns into cold, unforgiving disgust as he abandons her.
• Willard Brockton wants Laura's companionship and physical beauty, but he views their relationship as a practical transaction devoid of romantic illusions. He operates by a rigid, pragmatic code of male honor; while he is comfortable keeping a mistress, he refuses to be made a liar in his pact with John.
• Elfie St. Clair wants financial security at all costs and openly advocates for women using men for money. She serves as Laura's cynical foil, viewing virtue as a useless luxury for women in the theater.
• Annie wants to serve a mistress who has money, showing cold indifference to Laura's moral struggles while eagerly facilitating her return to a flashy, high-paying lifestyle.

In Its Own Voice

When Laura tries to break away from her old life in Colorado, Brockton reminds her of the harsh physical reality of giving up luxury:

"It won't be an easy job to come down to cases and suffer for the little dainty necessities you've been used to."

In the depths of her New York poverty, a fellow struggling theater worker named Jim Weston reflects on the cruel inequities facing women in the city:

"It's tough for me, but for a pretty woman with a lot o' rich fools jumping out o' their automobiles and hanging around stage doors, it must be something awful."

Reeling from John's final abandonment, Laura surrenders her hopes of redemption and prepares to return to the night life:

"Get my new hat, dress up my body and paint up my face. It's all they've left of me."

What It's Really About

The Easiest Way is a piercing critique of the economic trapped state of women in early twentieth-century America. Walter argues that society offers women like Laura no viable, independent path to financial survival, forcing them to choose between literal starvation and moral compromise. The play strips away romantic notions of sudden reform, showing how habit, luxury, and social pressures erode good intentions. It also examines the double standards of male morality: Brockton operates under a cold code of gentlemanly fairness that treats women as commodities, while John demands absolute purity from Laura despite his own reckless, libertine past. At its core, the play asks whether an individual can ever truly escape their past when economic necessity continuously drags them backward.

Why Read It Today

The Easiest Way remains a fascinating read for anyone interested in the birth of modern American drama and the evolution of theatrical realism. Far from a quaint period piece, the dialogue moves with a snappy, colloquial energy that captures the authentic slang of 1900s newsrooms, boarding houses, and stage doors. Readers who enjoy hard-nosed social realism, classic melodrama, or tragic character studies will appreciate how ruthlessly Walter avoids a happy ending, driving his heroine toward a devastating, inevitable conclusion.

Modern readers must navigate period elements that reflect its era, including explicit racial stereotyping in the stage directions and depiction of the servant Annie, as well as the heavy-handed moralizing typical of turn-of-the-century theater. Yet the play's central dilemma—the crushing intersection of poverty, female agency, and societal hypocrisy—feels startlingly modern. It offers a vivid, unflinching window into the dark underbelly of Gilded Age Broadway, leaving the reader with a haunting portrait of a woman crushed between her desire for virtue and her dread of poverty.