1st Edition

Susan Glaspell and Sophie Treadwell

By Barbara Ozieblo, Jerry Dickey Copyright 2008
    240 Pages
    by Routledge

    240 Pages
    by Routledge

    Susan Glaspell and Sophie Treadwell presents critical introductions to two of the most significant American dramatists of the early twentieth century. Glaspell and Treadwell led American Theatre from outdated melodrama to the experimentation of great European playwrights like Ibsen, Strindberg and Shaw.

    This is the first book to deal with Glaspell and Treadwell’s plays from a theatrical, rather than literary, perspective, and presents a comprehensive overview of their work from lesser known plays to seminal productions of Trifles and Machinal.

    Although each woman pursued her own themes, subjects and manner of stage production, this shared volume underscores the theatrical and cultural conditions influencing female playwrights in modern America.

    Introduction  Part 1: Susan Glaspell  Life and Politics  Key Plays I: The shorter plays – genesis and criticism  Key Plays II: The full-length plays – genesis and criticism  Key Plays III: The Feminist Appropriation of Trifles  Key Plays in Production: The Verge  Part 2: Sophie Treadwell  Life and Politics  Key Plays I: The early plays – genesis and criticism  Key Plays II: Broadway plays – genesis and criticism  Key Plays in Production I: Machinal – stagings and critical response  Key Plays in Production II: Intimations for Saxophone  Chronology  Bibliography  Index

    Biography

    Barbara Ozieblo teaches American Literature at the University of Málaga, Spain. She is the author of Susan Glaspell: A Critical Biography, editor of The Provincetown Players: A Choice of the Shorter Plays and co-editor of Disclosing Intertextualities: The Stories, Plays, and Novels of Susan Glaspell. She is co-founder and President of the Susan Glaspell Society.

    Jerry Dickey is Associate Professor of Theatre Arts at the University of Arizona. He is the author of Sophie Treadwell: a Research and Production Sourcebook and co-editor of Broadway’s Bravest Woman: Selected Writings of Sophie Treadwell. His essays on Treadwell have appeared in A Companion to Twentieth-Century American Drama and the Cambridge Companion to American Women Playwrights.

    'A dense, wellconsidered, and valuable starting point for interested scholars, directors, or instructors unfamiliar with the existing body of scholarship on Treadwell and Glaspell.' –Theatre Survey