Susan Glaspell’s
Bernice: A Play in Three Actspremiered at the Provincetown Players’ Playwrights Theatre on March 21, 1919. The 1918-1919 Season was the Players’ third in New York City, where they operated at number 139 and then 133 Macdougal Street in Greenwich Village. It was at the latter location that
Bernice, Glaspell’s first full length play, debuted. Despite the fact that
Bernicehas received less scholarly, critical, and commercial attention than other Glaspell plays like
Trifles(1916),
Inheritors(1921),
The Verge(1921), and
Alison’s House(1930), the play is especially significant to Glaspell’s career and to the American theatre, setting what novelist and critic Ludwig Lewisohn considered a new precedent for excellence: “the modern American drama has nothing…
3475 words
Citation: Campagna, Vanessa Marie. "Bernice: A Play in Three Acts". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 13 July 2015 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=15995, accessed 22 November 2024.]