Eva Marie Saint and Jeffrey Hayden love the writing of Willa Cather, America's first prominent woman author. So much so, that they enjoy having friends over to listen to them read short stories by their favorite writer.

At least, that’s how it seemed on Saturday evening at the Poway Center for the Performing Arts when the Oscar™ and Emmy™ winning actress and her husband of 57 years performed “On The Divide.” In each act, the two walked hand-in-hand on stage dressed as if they were holding a proper home party and read a Willa Cather short story from scripts perched on music stands.

“On The Divide” is actually a title of one of Ms. Cather’s stories, but it was not one of the two that were read on Saturday evening. Instead, Mr. Hayden and Ms. Saint performed “Eric Hermannson's Soul” in Act 1, and an edited version of the novel, “O Pioneers!” in Act 2.

The Divide is, however, a real place, where the Cather home was located in Red Cloud, Nebraska. Ms. Cather’s writing evokes the time around the turn of the 20th century when the Nebraska prairie embodied the pioneer spirit in America, and Scandinavian immigrants flocked to make new lives for themselves by turning the soil of a land that had resisted farming throughout its existence.

“Eric Hermannson's Soul” was one of Cather’s earliest works; it was published in 1900. The story reflects both Cather as a person and her life on the prairie. Eric Hermannson was a taciturn young man who loved to dance and play the fiddle but who gave up on both after seeing a rattlesnake while spending time with a young woman, taking the snake to be a sign from God. He joined the Free Gospel Church, in accordance with his mother’s wishes, and he did his best to lead the strict and sober life that the church prescribed. After a time, a young engaged woman came to visit, and reawakened Eric’s love of music. The two attended a dance, and Eric played his fiddle and danced once more. But, Margaret, the young fiancé, returned to the east never to be seen again, and Eric confessed his transgressions to his pastor.

In “O Pioneers!”, which was published in 1913, a young Alexandra Bergson inherited the family farm from her father, as her two older brothers were not interested in it. She turned it into a prosperous operation over the years, prosperous enough for her to be able to send her youngest brother, Emil, to college. When Emil returned from college, he became reacquainted with his childhood sweetheart, Marie, who, by this time, had married another man. Both Emil and Marie became infatuated with each other, and when Emil was about to leave for law school they had a tryst under a white mulberry tree. Marie’s husband found and shot the two of them. He was jailed for his crime, but Alexandra forgave him and traveled to Lincoln to visit him in prison.

Ms. Saint and Mr. Hayden’s presentation was edited smoothly and was presented in a straightforward manner. The pair were at their best when portraying various characters and playing dialogue opposite each other. In these sections they exhibited terrific chemistry. Ms. Cather wrote a good deal of narration in her works, however, and the two performers tended to trade this narration off paragraph by paragraph. From a dramatic standpoint and for ease of audience listening, this choice might not have always been the best one.

Still, the stories themselves made for a fine evening’s entertainment, and the graciousness of the performers brought what might have been dry prose to vibrant life.