From the pioneering and groundbreaking Provincetown Players comes this collection of innovative and revolutionary plays. Included in the collection is Pendleton King's thought provoking drama concerning drug addition, Eugene O'Neill's one character masterpiece, experimental plays by John Reed and Louise Bryant, and Susan Glaspell and George Cram Cook's trailblazing drama.

Hailed as a "masterpiece" when it was first produced and acclaimed as the "significant dramatic offering of the season," Susan Glaspell's play BERNICE explores the social criticism of its time. Glaspell examines the lives of a bohemian couple who have rejected Victorian morality and how their lives are drastically changed as they come to terms with the mystery and the unanswered questions surrounding the death of Bernice. A Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, Susan Glaspell was a founding member of the influential Provincetown Players and credited with a significant role in the development of...

A Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, Susan Glaspell was a founding member of the influential Provincetown Players and credited with a significant role in the development of modern drama in the United States. Her plays have been hailed as "masterpieces" and during her lifetime she was acclaimed as "one of the best contemporary dramatists." This volume includes three of her earlier one acts, all produced at the Provincetown Playhouse. "Trifles," Glaspell's classic play of dramatic realism, "Suppressed Desires," a Freudian comedy written with her husband George Cram Cook and "Close the Book,"...

From the Pulitzer prize-winning playwright comes a play of passion for freedom of thought and expression in American society. Written shortly after World War I and in a time of the Alien and Sedition acts, IHERITORS is a daring play questioning social justice in American democracy. The play was a departure from any of Glaspell's former work and was considered radical for its time with its defense of free speech. Still as poignant today as it was when it was first written.

From the Pulitzer prize-winning playwright comes the chronicle of Claire who, breaking away from the conventions of society, rebels against her Puritan background. Considered Susan Glaspell.s most sophisticated play, it was a pioneering work in nontraditional staging in the theatre. While critics and audiences at the time found the play perplexing-Alexander Woollcott proclaimed the play "decadent"-today it is considered a classic of experimental theatre.

It was hard to get back into the easy current of everyday talk. Cora Albright's question had too rudely pulled them out of it, disturbing the quiet flow of inconsequential things. Even when they had recovered and were safely flowing along on the fact that the new hotel was to cost two hundred thousand dollars, after they had moved with apparent serenity to lamentation over a neighbor who was sick in bed and without a cook, it was as if they were making a display of the ease with which they could move on those commonplace things, as if thus to deny the consciousness of whirlpools near by. So...