Susan Keating Glaspell, Bernice: A Play in Three Acts

Vanessa Marie Campagna (Monmouth College)

Ed. by Noelia Hernando-Real, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.3: American (US) Writing and Culture: The Early Twentieth-century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: J. Michael Duvall (College of Charleston), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Tony Papanikolas (San Jose State University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1919

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Play

Resources

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Susan Glaspell’s

Bernice: A Play in Three Acts

premiered at the Provincetown Players’ Playwrights Theatre on March 21, 1919. The 1918-1919 Season was the Players’ third in New York City, where they operated at number 139 and then 133 Macdougal Street in Greenwich Village. It was at the latter location that

Bernice

, Glaspell’s first full length play, debuted. Despite the fact that

Bernice

has received less scholarly, critical, and commercial attention than other Glaspell plays like

Trifles

(1916),

Inheritors

(1921),

The Verge

(1921), and

Alison’s House

(1930), the play is especially significant to Glaspell’s career and to the American theatre, setting what novelist and critic Ludwig Lewisohn considered a new precedent for excellence: “the modern American drama has nothing…

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3475 words

Citation: Campagna, Vanessa Marie. "Bernice: A Play in Three Acts". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 13 July 2015 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=15995, accessed 25 April 2024.]

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