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:
LSU has staged this play as well. Note that this video is of a rehearsal and that the sound quality may not be great:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFUaCXvIjY4
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 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://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
The Santa Barbara Theater of the Air has created a podcast of Trifles:
http://theatre-of-the-air.com/WordPress/archives/4256
Right now a community college in Ohio is working on a version of Trifles. Curiously enough, this school has just finished staging Pygmalion!
We'll conclude with a picture of the original 1916 production in NYC:
