Theater and plays are important tools through which artists can speak to the public about social issues. Gender inequality has attracted massive attention since the late 19th century, which is also reflected in the work of women playwrights of different periods. The psychological pressure that women experienced while in the world of male domination became a subject for theatrical performances. Sophie Treadwell, Susan Glaspell, and Lorraine Hansberry made a significant contribution to the development of this direction at different stages. They all discussed women’s striving for self-identification in a world of social constraints and rigid gender roles, emphasizing the opposition of the individual and the communal. While playwriters explored these topics from a variety of perspectives, they reflected issues relevant to their time and called attention to the need for social change.
Sophie Treadwell was a journalist but became famous for her work as a playwright in the first half of the 20th century. She has written not only many newspaper articles but also numerous plays and novels. Her works mainly focus on the social issues of women and discuss topics related to Treadwell’s Mexican roots. Li (2016) notes that 20th-century American women playwrights tried to explore women’s identity, “noting the tension between individuality and community, self-interest and responsibility to others” (p. 49). They paid particular attention to the pressure from public morality, which prevents the manifestation of the individual behavior of women. Gender inequality and discrimination have driven many women to seek self-identification and transformation in many areas of everyday life.
Treadwell’s plays focused primarily on the domestic issues of women stemming from a desire for independence under social constraints. The most famous of Treadwell’s works is Machinal, which “shows its heroine – referred to simply as Young Woman – to be lonely in marriage and motherhood” (Jays, 2018). An attempt to free herself from conventions and live according to her desires leads a woman to death. This plot was inspired by the story of Ruth Snyder, who in 1927 was sentenced to death for the murder of her husband. Her other play, Gringo, portrays Myra Light as a woman seeking to escape the trap of marriage and abandoning her husband. The play also reflects Treadwell’s interest in the fate of Mexico, as it was written shortly after the journalist covered the Mexican Revolution. Another example is Ladies’ leave, which tells about a young woman rejecting both her husband and lover to move to Vienna. These stories illustrate how the female characters refuse to follow the norms of society and choose their path.
In her plays, Treadwell seeks to show how women redefine their gender identity and try to contradict social morality. In particular, female characters oppose dominant gender roles and associated responsibilities. Treadwell considers dominant values as a limitation of personal development that causes psychological discomfort in women. Journalism helped the playwright to portray the realistic social struggles that women around the world faced. Treadwell watched social trends closely and could not help but discuss them in public. Therefore, the characters in her plays are contradictory and full of complexities, which makes them resemble real people with existing problems. Moreover, many of Treadwell’s works were based not only on journalistic but also on personal experience, which gave them a special depth (“Treadwell and 1920s theater,” n. d.). Thus, the women in the Treadwell plays manifest their independence by questioning the role of men in their own lives and happiness. In particular, she criticizes marriage and the gender roles associated with it in society.
Susan Glaspell is one of the earliest female playwrights in America and the creator of the Provincetown Players, which has helped promote prominent American theater actors. Like Treadwell, Glaspell’s plays focused on feminist themes, as well as the juxtaposition of individual choice and social values (Li, 2016). Both playwrights sought to portray a woman not submissive and chaste but rebellious and claiming her rights. Moreover, Glaspell and Treadwell used individual stories placed in a social and domestic context. However, while in Treadwell, the main characters strive for simple solitude and abandonment of social restrictions, Glaspell portrays them as a “madwoman, forced into non-conformity, violence, or even decadence” (Ismael & Jessim, 2018, p. 1). Thus, the earlier works of women playwrights laid the foundations for the spread of feminist views in art.
Glaspell, in her works, discussed the position of women who try to exist in a world with patriarchal domination. Thus, the main characters of her plays are women who have suffered from the gender roles established in society. Like Treadwell, Glaspell worked as a journalist and collected material that would later become the basis of many of her works. Play Trifles was written after the trial of the woman Margaret Hossack, who was sentenced to life in prison after the murder of her husband. Although Glaspell agreed with the verdict, she identified with Hossack, who was under psychological pressure in her marriage (Ismael & Jessim, 2018). In this work, Glaspell describes what causes a woman to kill and how difficult living conditions associated with male domination force them to do it.
Another significant work by the playwright is the Verge, which explores how traditional gender roles and associated responsibilities constrain the lives of more modern women. This work highlights the important difference between Glaspell and other playwrights, as it not only illustrates the problem but also discusses how to solve it. Moreover, she uses technical innovation as a way to communicate with the viewer and create an additional layer of meaning (Ismael & Jessim, 2018). Although Treadwell later used expressionist and modernist techniques in her works, suggesting atypical technologies, they created more of a visual effect. Despite this fact, both playwrights manage to draw attention to the marginalization of the role of women in society.
Treadwell and Glaspell portray female characters as oppressed by the patriarchal system and male dominance. Women in this position experience constant psychological stress, which pushes them to action. Attempts to break free from the restrictions imposed on them by domestic responsibilities and social values make women search for a way to escape this trap. However, often the desire for independence leads female characters to other forms of imprisonment, physical and not psychological. Although some of Treadwell’s women die at the end, her plots are still more optimistic, and the characters can achieve their goals. Glaspell does not lead her female characters to death, but they are necessarily doomed to suffering and deterioration of the situation. Thus, Treadwell and Glaspell discussed the same topics, drawing public attention to the problems of gender inequality. However, Glaspell’s work was more tragic, which may be a consequence of her life in the context of Victorian social values. At the time, Treadwell was less radical and more artistic in describing social trends.
Lorraine Hansberry’s works are also significant in the history of the development of women’s playwriting and explore the problems of women’s identity in the context of social constraints. However, in contrast to Treadwell and Glaspell, her primal goal is to “present race and regionalism as important factors in the construction of female subjectivity” (Li, 2016, p. 107).
Thus, Hansberry focuses on the position of women concerning the racial and ethnic concerns that are present in the American Society of the late 20th century. The central theme of her work, like that of Treadwell and Glaspell, is the self-identification of women, but she expands this concept to the framework of class and racial inequality. Moreover, while earlier writers used realistic subjects for their work, Hansberry experimented with post-apocalyptic fantasies in which she was able to portray a wider social picture (Cunningham, 2020). Thus, Treadwell and Glaspell focused exclusively on white American women, while Hansberry brought racism and cultural heritage concerns to the feminist agenda.
While Sophie Treadwell, Susan Glaspell, and Lorraine Hansberry explored the same topics, they did it from different perspectives. Moreover, they reflected issues that were relevant to their time, which shows the evolution of the feminist agenda in the theater. Playwriters have focused on the need to address the psychological stress women experience within domestic gender roles. Sophie Treadwell emphasized the need to contrast moral norms and identity. Susan Glaspell explored how gender roles make women suffer and how to escape them. Lorraine Hansberry has placed the issue of gender inequality in the broader context of racial and ethnic discrimination. The works of the three playwrights became key in the development of a feminist agenda in the theater, as each conveyed topical issues that she could observe in the world.
References
Cunningham, V. (2020). Lorraine Hansberry’s roving global vision. The New Yorker. Web.
Ismael, Z. I., & Jassim, J. W. (2018). Moving out of the attic: Susan Glaspell and the American she-tragedy. English Language and Literature Studies, 8(4), 1-7. Web.
Jays, D. (2018). Machinal: How an execution gripped America and sparked a Broadway sensation. The Guardian. Web.
Li, J. (2016). Self in community: Twentieth-century American drama by women (Doctoral thesis, Hong Kong Baptist University). Web.
Treadwell and 1920s theater. (n. d.). Sophie Treadwell. Web.