From the Archives: Trifles

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Trifles

With Susan Glaspell's Trifles, we are examining women in modern drama with the following twist: the play was written by a woman (see the picture of the playwright above).

Here is a brief biography of Ms. Glaspell:

http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap8/glaspell.html#bio

For more information about her early 20th c. milieu, see this web site:

http://www.provincetownplayhouse.com/history.html

Minneapolis' Theater Unbound staged Trifles in 2005.  A scene from that production is pictured below:

A NYC theater company d'mosielles has staged this play more recently and even videotaped it for YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1LGwPFeSz8

Here is a little bit of information about the production:

http://www.dmoiselles.com/trifles.html

John G. Bilotta and John F. McGrew have created an opera based on Glaspell's play:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTIZ5TL1vaQ

Here are excerpts from film versions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpNuw0vFU5E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9EPnf1WXSE&feature=related

This picture is from a version staged at NYC's Ontological-Hysterical Theater:

Woo-hoo!  Here are some more videos:

http://www.twoheadedcalf.org/shows/trifles/trifles.html

Let's look for a few reviews.  Unfortunately, many of the videos available are school projects.

Ah, here is Matthew A. Everett's review of Theater Unbound's production:

http://www.matthewaeverett.com/columns/detail.php?articleID=483

Alexis Soloski of The Village Voice reviews The Ontological-Hysteric Theater production:

http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-02-09/theater/on-the-creepy-feminist-drama-trifles/

Ken Jaworowski of the NY Times weighs in here:

http://theater.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/theater/reviews/02trifles.html?emc=e

A student-directed performance at Illinois' North Central College is discussed here:

 http://web.archive.org/web/20110105200602/http://northcentralcollege.edu/x46996.xml

For more reviews of other plays by Glaspell, see this site from Seton Hall:

http://academic.shu.edu/glaspell/Performances/performances.htm

Here is a review of the Unexpected Stage Company's production of (Dumb Waiter) and Trifles:

http://www.dcmetrotheaterarts.com/2012/07/23/the-dumb-waiter-and-trifles-at-unexpected-stage-company-by-kim-moeller/

This article is about the Unexpected Stage Company:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/gog/performing-arts/the-dumb-waiter-and-trifles,1234630/critic-review.html

I can't find the video of their rehearsal, but here is a pictures of actors from the company's production.

We'll conclude with a picture of the original 1916 production in NYC: