References

Susan Glaspell, Actor

J. Ellen Gainor

DOI : 10.54563/coupdetheatre.1171

p. 23-44

    Abstracts

    Susan Glaspell is known primarily as a writer of outstanding works in multiple genres. Yet commentary on her brief period as an actor also regularly appears in her biographies, in her colleagues’ memoirs, and in critical studies of her artistry. Glaspell performed seven roles in her plays at the Provincetown; reviews of these performances, coupled with contemporaries’ observations, suggest that Glaspell not only excelled as an actor, but also that her acting reflected emerging, modernist ideas about performance years before remarkably similar Stanislavskian techniques came to define this artistry in the USA. Moreover, Glaspell’s work as an actor may resonate synergistically with her writing, especially in her adaptation of her best-known play, Trifles, into its short fiction counterpart, “A Jury of Her Peers.”

    Susan Glaspell est reconnue comme une autrice majeure ayant produit une œuvre relevant de différents genres. Dans les biographies, mémoires de ses contemporains et dans les études critiques analysant son art, il est fréquent de croiser des commentaires faisant état de sa brève carrière en tant qu'actrice. Glaspell a interprété sept rôles dans ses pièces présentées par la compagnie des Provincetown Players; les critiques de ces représentations, ainsi que les observations de ses contemporains, suggèrent que Glaspell était non seulement une talentueuse actrice mais également que son jeu reflétait les idées modernistes émergentes sur la performance, des années avant que l’influence des techniques stanislavskiennes qui façonnèrent la formation d’acteur aux États-Unis. De plus, des synergies peuvent être décelées entre les façons dont Glaspell appréhender le jeu et l’écriture, en particulier dans « A Jury of Her Peers », la nouvelle adaptée de sa pièce la plus connue, Trifles.

    Index

    Mots-clés

    Susan Glaspell, jeu d’acteur, Stanislavsky, Jacques Copeau, Trifles, « A Jury of Her Peers »

    Keywords

    Susan Glaspell, Acting, Stanislavsky, Jacques Copeau, Trifles, “A Jury of Her Peers”

    Excerpt

    A playwright… is a hybrid, a cross between an actor/improviser and a writer
    Judith Thompson, “That Stinking Hot Summer”

    Susan Glaspell (1876-1948) is known primarily as a writer of outstanding works in multiple genres. But commentary on her brief, yet noteworthy period as an actor for the Provincetown Players also regularly appears in her biographies, in her colleagues’ memoirs, and in critical studies of her artistry. The best-known of her contemporaries’ remarks may be those of influential French modernist director Jacques Copeau (1879-1949), on her performance as The Woman from Idaho in her 1917 play The People. Published excerpts from Copeau’s comments on Glaspell’s acting, as cited previously by many Glaspell scholars, appear to derive from a 1977 article by Norman H. Paul about the French director’s 1917-1919 residency in New York. But Copeau’s analysis of the theatre he observed while in New York is both more extensive and complex than what the observations of Glaspell alone mi...

    References

    Bibliographical reference

    J. Ellen Gainor, « Susan Glaspell, Actor », Coup de théâtre, 39 | 2025, 23-44.

    Electronic reference

    J. Ellen Gainor, « Susan Glaspell, Actor », Coup de théâtre [Online], 39 | 2025, Online since 01 décembre 2026, connection on 07 septembre 2026. DOI : 10.54563/coupdetheatre.1171

    Author

    J. Ellen Gainor

    J. Ellen Gainor is Professor of Performing and Media Arts at Cornell University. She wrote the award-winning studies Shaw's Daughters: Dramatic and Narrative Constructions of Gender and Susan Glaspell in Context: American Theater, Culture and Politics 1915-48. She is a co-editor of The Norton Anthology of Drama, co-editor of The Complete Plays of Susan Glaspell, and the editor of Githa Sowerby: Three Plays. She also edited the influential essay collection Imperialism and Theatre and co-edited Performing America: Culture Nationalism in American Theater. Most recently she edited Susan Glaspell in Context, and co-edited The Routledge Anthology of Women’s Theatre Theory & Dramatic Criticism, which received the 2024 George Freedley Memorial Award Special Jury Prize from the Theatre Library Association. She is an elected fellow of the College of Fellows of the American Theatre.

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