[1] The play, starring Glenn Anders and Claudette Colbert, opened on Broadway on February 11, 1929, and closed in March, after 50 performances.
The characters comprise two families and one extra: Who live next door to: Jennings, who does not appear until the final act, is an operator at the plant.
In the first act, O'Neill establishes a conflict between the Lights and the Fifes that is marked by their religious differences and has soured into personal hatred.
On a stormy night, Fife tricks Reuben and his father into falling for a joke because they hadn't read the newspaper.
The play closes in Mrs. Fife's helpless expression of distress at the dynamo's treatment of them all.