★★★★☆ Everything has changed, and everything is still the same

Trifles

Susan Glaspell

Susan Glaspell's Trifles is a one-act play first performed in 1916. It is now in the public domain and can be read for free, for instance at Project Gutenberg. It's a play about men and women.

You couldn't write this now. So much of the relationship between men and women has changed. In 1916 women couldn't vote in the USA or Canada. Women were legally and socially lesser than men. Women were silly and emotional, and men were serious thinkers. A man could, for practical purposes, ignore almost anything a woman said. Those things are no longer true. Yet it is still true that men silence women. Although everything has changed, this play feels familiar and relevant.

Trifles is a play of quiet rebellion. It's good. You can read it in a few minutes, and it's worth your time.

Trifles on Project Gutenberg

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