This short play is a gem of classic literature. Written for the then newly founded Provincetown Players, ‘Two Slatterns and a King’ studies the irony of fast selection of potential romantic partners. While exploring that theme the play follows many of the conventions of medieval morality plays by making the central villain personified Chance, who wreaks havoc on the life of a King who is on a quest to find the perfect mate. The King states that he will marry only a neat, orderly woman and tours his land in search of his ideal. On this day, Chance causes a normally tidy woman to be beset with chaos through no fault of her own, and Chance also inspires a slattern to have a whim to clean her home on one day only. The King of course in his hurry to come to a satisfactory conclusion misjudges both women. Chance leads him to take the hand of the utterly wrong person, and the moral of the story is not to judge character too quickly.