playwright: Susan Glaspell

“Come, little one, and let us learn of love.” 
― Susan Glaspell
 

born in Davenport, Iowa, Glaspell did not teach like most career-minded women of her time but rather became a reporter for the Davenport Morning Republican and later the society editor for Davenport's Weekly Outlook. In 1897, she enrolled at Drake University in Des Moines. She later entered the University of Chicago for graduate work in English, and in 1909, her first novel, The Glory of the Conquered, was published. Glaspell married George Cram Cook, founder of the Provincetown Players drama group of Provincetown, Massachusetts. The Players performed several of her dramatic works including Trifles (1916).

among her full-length plays are Bernice (1919) and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Alison's House. Her novels include The Visioning (1911), The Road to the Temple (1927), and Norma Ashe (1942). Many of her works depict women's lives throughout history, from the pioneers of the 1840s to the war widows of the 1940s.

rebelling early against the expectations imposed on women of her era, Glaspell grappled with the conflict between Victorian mores and feminist aspirations throughout her life. In Trifles, now recognized as a groundbreaking feminist drama, she explored the reasons for a woman's extreme response to her husband's demanding, authoritarian stance.

taken from:

http://www.icgov.org/?id=1645 [Susan Glaspell (1876-1948) - City of Iowa City]
http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/spec-coll/msc/tomsc800/msc798/msc798_glaspellsusan.htm [image credit]

 

 

playwright: Hendrik Ibsen

 

“To live is to war with trolls.” 
― Henrik Ibsen

 

Norwegian playwright and poet Henrik Ibsen (1828 – 1906) created twenty-six plays and a volume of poetry. He is noted for his nationalistic spirit and for exploring Europe’s social problems during the 1800s. Critics both past and present have praised his realistic approach to drama and his well-developed characters. He is especially renowned for depicting female characters—such as Nora of A Doll’s House and Hedda Gabler herself—who rebel against the limited roles prescribed for them. Even though Ibsen’s plays were scandalous in their own time, Ibsen’s sense of social engagement, his fascination with symbolism, and his attention to psychological detail inspired many of the most influential writers of the 20th century.

The story of his life -- his birth March 20, 1828, in the little Norwegian village of Skien, the change in family circumstances from prosperity to poverty when the boy was eight years old, his studious and non-athletic boyhood, his apprenticeship to an apothecary in Grimstad, and his early attempts at dramatic composition -- all these items are well known. His spare hours were spent in preparation for entrance to Christiania University, where, at about the age of twenty, he formed a friendship with Björnson. About 1851 the violinist Ole Bull gave Ibsen the position of "theater poet" at the newly built National Theater in Bergen -- a post which he held for six years. In 1857 he became director of the Norwegian Theater in Christiania; and in 1862, with Love's Comedy, became known in his own country as a playwright of promise.

Seven years later, discouraged with the reception given to his work and out of sympathy with the social and intellectual ideals of his country, he left Norway, not to return for a period of nearly thirty years. He established himself first at Rome, later in Munich. Late in life he returned to Christiania, where he died May 23, 1906

taken from:

http://www.theatredatabase.com/19th_century/henrik_ibsen_001.html [Hendrik Ibsen]
http://www.glogster.com/m00naa/henrik-ibsen/g-6mfd57p5n6b25262s9sela0 [image credit]