Susan Glaspell: Essays on Her Theater and Fiction ed. by Linda Ben-Zvi (review)

Book Reviews tends to employ party-line assumptions and vocabulary. but moves beyond them as he rejects the politics. The chapler on gender tries too hard to prove the direct influence of Susan GJaspeU on the young O'Neill, and is simply unconvincing; the chapter grows in strength as it moves away from that thesis to explore such topics as the role of nineteenth-century portrayals of Ophelia in the creating of the character of Mary Tyrone_ Pfister closes his book with the reassurance with which he began, that it is not his intention to destroy or discredit O'Neill, but rather to offer a new conceptual vocabulary with which to analyze and appreciate him. If Staging Depth does not succeed in all its attempts at redefmition. it does begin a process that may indeed prove as enlightening as Pfister hopes. 'GERALD M. BERKOWITZ, NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY LINDA BEN-ZVI, Ed. Susan Glaspell: Essays on Her Theater and Fiction. Ann Arbor: UniverSity of Michigan Press 1995. pp. 360, illustrated. $44.50. This collection of essays is a welcome addition to the growing field of Glaspell scholarShip . As the title of the volume indicates, essays give consideration to Glaspell's playwriting and as well to her career as a writer of fiction, although, in the main, the focus of the volume is on Glaspell's theater rather than her fiction. The collection of essays is organised into five parts. Part One looks at the,dramatisation of Trifles and its companion story "Jury of Her Peers." This section includes Elaine Hedge's award-winning essay, "Small Things Reconsidered: 'A Jury of Her Peers"', which uses social history and autobiographical writing to look at the material conditions of the women represented by Glaspell, and "Murder She Wrote," by the editor, which is an excellent contextualization of Trifles in relation to the actual murder case on which it was based. The focus on The Verge in Part Two represents a welcome shift away from an emphasis on Glaspell's political play The Inheritors. which her contemporary, male, critics, despite criticisms, were more favourably disposed towards than the womancentred impulse of The Verge. Essays on The Verge offer different critical readings of the play, drawing on a range offeminist theory and theatre, including, for example, Marcia Noe's analysis which makes use of French feminist theory, specifically the concept of /' ecriture jeminine. In Part Three my attention was particularly drawn to J. Ellen Gainor's essay on the Chains ofDew, which gives the reader access to an unpublished play by Olaspell. and contextualizes a study of the drama in relation to the history of the birth-control movement in America, and to other plays of the period which also tackled this social issue. Other feminist readings in this section offer analyses ofGlaspell's representations of the "absent heroines" in Bernice and Alison's House. Katharine Rodier's study of Alison's House, "the Emily Dickinson story" (198), incisively links Glaspell's use of biography to the representation and the reception of Emily Dickinson and her poetry, contemporaneous with the staging of Glaspell's play. Two illuminating essays 370 Book Reviews make up Part Four on canonical issues. Gerhard Bach's essay centrally critiques the ideology of canon formation and, in particular, theatre history's mythologisation of the beginnings of American drama, deconstructing, for example, the cherished myth of Eugene O'Neill, Glaspell's contemporary, as the man who was "single·handedly" responsible forlhose beginnings (243). The companion essay in this section by Judith E. Barlow offers a wealth of detail concerning GJaspell's "sister" playwrights at the Provincetown Players. The final two essays concerned with Glaspell's fiction look at her collection of short stories. Lifted Masks, and a representative range of her novels from different phases .of her writing career. The volume brings together a cross-section of contributors, coming from a range of disciplines and representing both beginning and established scholars. The study is likely to appeal to a wide-ranging readership, including those interested in theatre studies,American studies, and women's studies. What the collection leaves out, or perhaps what it cannot hope to cover in one volume, is more detail...