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Susan Glaspell: The Verge: A Play in Three Acts (1921)

By Barbara Ozieblo (University of Malaga)

Indexing Data:

  • Domain: Theatre, Literature.
  • Genre: Play.
  • Country: USA, North America.

Life, Works and Times

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The Verge is Susan Glaspell’s most avant-garde and modernist play and, in the words of C. W. E. Bigsby, attempts “a radical revisioning of all aspects of theatre” so profound in its implications that “few writers, before or since” have dared embark on a comparable experiment (Intro Plays 19). It is a play that affects audiences in extreme ways; both in 1921 when the play was first performed by the Provincetown Players in New York and in 1996 when it was last revived in England spectators and critics were divided into those who admired the play unconditionally and those who damned it, equally unconditionally. In The Verge, Glaspell, as she did in all her writing, placed a woman centre

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Published 11 January 2006

Citation: Ozieblo, Barbara. "The Verge: A Play in Three Acts". The Literary Encyclopedia. 11 January 2006.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16003, accessed 20 November 2009.]