Plays: Trifles/ The Outside/ The Verge/ Inheritors

by Susan Glaspell

Book by Glaspell, Susan

Genres: Theatre, Plays

137 pages, Paperback

Published October 8, 2007

About the author

Susan Keating Glaspell (July 1, 1876 – July 27, 1948) was an American Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, actress, director, novelist, biographer and poet. She was a founding member of the Provincetown Players, one of the most important collaboratives in the development of modern drama in the United States. She also served in the Works Progress Administration as Midwest Bureau Director of the Federal Theater Project.
Her novels and plays are committed to developing deep, sympathetic characters, to understanding 'life' in its complexity. Though realism was the medium of her fiction, she was also greatly interested in philosophy and religion. Many of her characters make principled stands.
As part of the Provincetown Players, she arranged for the first ever reading of a play by Eugene O'Neill.

Reviews

[mazal bohbot berrie]

For our senior thesis project, my high school dramaturg teacher, John Keveanos, proposed two one-act theatre performances, to be dircted by classmate, Matthew Weinstein and myslef . Weinstein directed a Dadaist piece contrasting my uber-realist play, Trifles. In it's quiet midwestern tone the play reveals the keenly attuned and refined prowess of women who deal only with "trifling" matters.

[Jessica Zoop · Rating 3 out of 5]

Trifles & The Inheritors are insightful & thought provoking. I will be thinking about them for a long time. The Outside & The Verge, on the other hand, were just too esoteric for me.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

My daughter had to read Trifles for her A.P. Literature class junior year. I saw it sitting on the table and read it by chance. I loved it. She, unfortunately, did not. I thought it was brilliantly written and I found it quite amusing on a level too.