Surf Wiki
Save to docs
general/1917-plays

From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

The Outside

Play by Susan Glaspell

Play by Susan Glaspell

The Outside (1917) is the shortest play by Susan Glaspell. It is a play in one act. She uses symbolism to convey the emptiness of Mrs. Patrick’s life on the outside. Glaspell uses the imagery of the station and the areas beyond to show that Mrs. Patrick is keeping herself away from the things she once knew. Glaspell’s use of symbolism aides the characters onstage as well as the audience in realizing the situation the women are facing.

The play was first performed by the Provincetown Players at the Playwrights' Theatre, December 28, 1917. It was revived in 1997 and 2008 by the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond, London. The Outside was directed by Svetlana Dimcovic in 2008, a graduate of the trainee director bursary at the Orange Tree Theatre 2001-2002.

Characters

  • Captain, of 'The Bars' Life-Saving Station
  • Bradford, a Life-Saver
  • Tony, a Portuguese Life-Saver
  • Mrs. Patrick, who lives in the abandoned Station
  • Allie Mayo, who works for her

Plot

The plot centers on two women, Mrs. Patrick and Allie Mayo, who have exiled themselves from the world because of emotional pain caused by their husbands. Allie Mayo has refused to say an “unnecessary word” since the death of her husband. Mrs. Patrick has returned to the place that she and her husband used to visit and had talked of buying to bury the things that hurt her. The main action of the play takes place in an abandoned life-saving station that Mrs. Patrick has recently bought, on the cape, in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Three men, Bradford, Tony, and the Captain, fight to save a man who has drowned at their old station, now the house of Mrs. Patrick. The men have brought the victim to this place because of convenience, since the body was found only forty feet from the house, and out of habit, since they used to work from this location. At the end, it is Allie who tries to save Mrs. Patrick from the life that she wants.

References

General references

References

  1. Kennedy, Jeff. (2007). "The Outside".
  2. Glaspell, Susan. (1920). "Plays". Small, Maynard & Company.
  3. 'Theatre Reviews: The Outside', ''The Stage'' 3 April 1997
  4. (April 2008). "Glaspell Shorts: Trifles, Suppressed Desire, The Outside". [[Orange Tree Theatre]].
Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

1917-plays plays-by-susan-glaspell one-act-plays plays-set-in-massachusetts
Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about The Outside — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report