The ship

the long version

In this three-act play, The Ship, Mr. Ervine has developed into a powerful drama the theme of the Belfast ship-builder which will be familiar to readers of Changing Winds. For John Thurlow, ship building is the great adventure, and absorbs all his creative passion. His pride in it destroys his only son, who was his unwilling deputy on the disastrous maiden voyage of the ship that John had believed to be unsinkable. The son cared nothing for ships and loathed machinery, loving handicrafts, nature and the simple life, but with no desire to bring his own ideal of life and his father's into violent opposition. As in Mixed Marriage it is the father who forces the issue, with the result that youth is once more destroyed. --Alice Lothian in North American Review (May 1922).