When Susan Glaspell and George Cram Cook wrote

in the winter of 1914-1915, they could not imagine the transcendence this hilarious one-act play would achieve. Rejected at first by the famous Washington Square Players, who considered it “too special” for them to be performed (Glaspell

192),

contributed to mark the beginning of the modern theatre in the United States.

Suppressed Desires opens in the living-room of Henrietta and Steve Brewster's “studio apartment in […] Washington Square south” (33), a prototypical home environment in Greenwich Village. The set design features an enormous window in the back wall through which the Washington Square Arch can be seen. As Noe and Marlowe suggest, “the prominence of this landmark, a

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Citation: Hernando-Real, Noelia. "Suppressed Desires: A Comedy in Two Scenes". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 19 August 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=15993, accessed 24 November 2024.]

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