The Provincetown Players theatre and the genesis of women playwrights in the USA

Abstract

The article analyzes the specifics of the activity and the sociocultural significance of the American Provincetown Players theatre, whose brief existence had an enormous influence on the formation of Eugene O’Neill’s creative method. The theatre’s practice is examined on one hand within the context of the formation of the ‘New Drama’, and within that of the appearance of the Women’s Suffrage movement on the other. It has never previously been examined from this viewpoint, so essential for an understanding of the role it played in the history of American culture. The article analyzes in detail Susan Glaspell’s play Trifles, which has never been translated into Russian. For the first time in the academic tradition, the closeness of Glaspell’s plays to European ‘New Drama’ and their scenic potential are revealed, as well as the motifs present in them that would later become manifest both in the early and mature plays of Eugene O’Neill. This allows us to take another look at the level of influence that the Provincetown Players had on the leading playwright of the United States of the first half of 20th century. Refs. 15.