The Verge: A Play In Three Acts

by Susan Glaspell

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Genres: Plays, Theatre, School, Classics, Drama

124 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 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

[Brooke]

WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED

[Rocío]

Necesito que mi profesor me explique las cosas pq no entiendo nada

[Martiu]

mucha planta

[veronika 소라]

need 5-14 business days to process this, but holy shit was it good (kind of even more outstanding than trifles. . .?)

[Keith Moser]

Doing a staged reading of The Verge this week, and so read this with the cast in preparation.

What a strange play—moreso after seeing it was written in the 20s! I was in another play of Susan Glaspell's in college—Trifles—however, I have no recollection of that story at all. I wish I remembered more about it to compare these two Glaspell works, but all I remember about that play was being the detective (I think) and writing a bunch of nonsense in my notebook every night while on stage.

The Verge is all about Claire, a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She spends most of her time in the greenhouse, building new—not better, just different—plants. One winter, with guests in their house, she diverts the heat to the greenhouse, much to the dismay of her husband, Harry. Since the greenhouse is the only place with heat, Harry invites their friends—Dick & Tom—to eat breakfast there instead of the house. Claire's daughter from her first husband, Elizabeth, and her sister, Adelaide, both visit, as does a doctor of the nerves, Dr. Emmons, while it comes out that Claire has possibly slept with Tom, Dick, and Harry and it all devolves into a crazy climax with death and destroyed flowers.

Maybe I was too tired at our reading at 10am on a Saturday, but I just could not follow Claire's train of thought from one line to the next. Her speeches often went off on tangents unrelated to the scene, and her emotions flipped back and forth and back again. Perhaps on second reading later this week, with an audience, I'll get the play a little more, now that I know all the characters and some history, but on first reading, I wasn't quite sure I knew what I read...

[Avital]

Claire is locked up in a greenhouse, trying to create a new type of plant, something new, but not necessarily better, only different from everything that already exists. In her obsession she tries to leave her daughter, husband, sister and lover outside, in the cold, so they won't disturb this new creation. Their attempts to bring her back to the familiar push her toward complete madness. Impressive, especially knowing it was written in the 1920's.

[Thegirlintheafternoon]

I know this makes me a bad critic, but if I can't find something sympathetic in a main character, I honestly don't care about any other merits the work may have. I just don't. And so this play really didn't work for me, even though on paper it should have been a really great fit. I'm giving it three stars for being interesting and giving me a lot to think about, but I didn't enjoy it at all.

[Aryn O'Connor]

Very interesting read on the subject of gender equality and female creativity. Also discusses the issues of social conventions, particularly those towards women in the 1920s. Little difficult to fully understand without reading commentary and analysis on it as well, but overall a rather powerful piece.

[Frannie Cheska]

I know this is supposed to be amazing, but it was really confusing. Every time that Claire would break into prose, I never understood what she was really saying. Original af thats for sure.

[Jane]

Interesting Victorian perspective with language difficult to follow and an ending disturbing and unbelievable given Glaspell’s characterizations.

[Jojo]

Summary: Claire seems to be a bit obsessed with her plants, even going as far as to turn the heat off in the main house so that her greenhouse (or whatever it is) is just right temp wise. She's got her gardener, Anthony, her husband, Harry. Harry is none too pleased with the cold house so goes to eat breakfast in with the plants and invites his two guests, Dick and Tom. Claire seems to kinda have a thing of Tom. Her daughter, Elizabeth, shows up but Claire doesn't seem too interested in her. Then her sister also shows up and confronts her about not caring for Elizabeth. Harry gets a doctor to come to see Claire as he thinks she's losing it. She's sorta obsessed with this one plant of hers. Anyway in the end she winds up killing Tom and uh, that's about it.
Review: I didn't get this one. That's really all I can think to say. I didn't completely hate it. It was somewhat interesting but yeah not sure what I'm supposed to make of the whole thing.
Grade: C-

[Knight Of]

It was quite an interesting play.

[maya]

I did not like reading it and I think Claire is selfish and insufferable, but my god is it well written and crafted with so much intention when you break it down

[Madeleine]

women in stem 👍
male characters trying to control women 👎

[Lily Magoon]

Absolutely loved it.

[Nicole Fernandez]

Even though the dialogues are all over the place, it is definitely an interesting read. It is quick and easy to get lost in the story arcs within the play.

[sophies world]

Glaspell masterfully portrays, essentially, a woman's spiraling into madness. At its very core are issues of belonging and exclusion, of acceptance and women's (creative) freedom. Mirrored in both the language, which gets more and more fragmented as the breakdown continues, and the play's material images like breaking glass, The Verge takes the reader on a disorienting journey where one might begin to question one's own sanity.

[Anna]

Intelligent, creative, ahead of her times. I got every reference so naturally it blew my mind. Forever one of my favourites.