ABSTRACT
Despite the controversy which Ibsen initially aroused in his contemporary critics, his position as a pioneer of the ‘new drama’, and his canonical status as the ‘father’ of modern drama have now been assured. Like Ibsen, the American playwright Susan Glaspell was also a turn-of-the-century pioneer of the ‘new drama’. However, Glaspell’s ‘contemporary reputation as one of the two most accomplished playwrights of twentieth-century America may come as a legitimate surprise even to serious students of dramatic history’ (Dymkowski 1988: 91). Unlike Ibsen, the American ‘new dramatist’ has been allowed to ‘disappear’. That her ‘disappearance’ is rooted in the gender bias of the ‘canon’ is the central argument of this first case study which aims to pursue in detail some of the general observations and criticisms raised in Chapter 2. By examining the (male) reviewing of Glaspell’s work, the study will show how gender bias contributed to the marginalization of Glaspell’s theatre, which has only recently been reclaimed by feminist theatre historians. Given the obscurity into which Glaspell has fallen, this ‘lost’ dramatist needs a brief contextualizing introduction.
