Susan Keating Glaspell, The Comic Artist: A Play in Three Acts

Sherry Engle (Manhattan College)

Ed. by Noelia Hernando-Real, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.3: American (US) Writing and Culture: The Early Twentieth-century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: J. Michael Duvall (College of Charleston), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Tony Papanikolas (San Jose State University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1927

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Play

Resources

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The Comic Artist

is a collaborative effort of Susan Glaspell and Norman Matson, written in the spring and fall of 1926. The play was published before a London production in 1928 and did not open in New York until April 1933; despite first-rate actors in the production at the Morosco Theatre, the play ran for only 21 performances, possibly reflecting the low appeal of serious plays for Depression-Era audiences. While some Glaspell scholars may dismiss

The Comic Artist

because of “difficulties of thematic attribution” as a collaborative work (Makowsky 154), other Glaspell scholars credit authorship in different ways. One theory maintains that Glaspell wrote the play with Matson—seventeen years her junior—because she was “[e]ager to help him toward success”, but that the play was…

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2569 words

Citation: Engle, Sherry. "The Comic Artist: A Play in Three Acts". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 09 September 2013 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16005, accessed 22 November 2024.]

Susan Keating Glaspell, The Comic Artist: A Play in Three Acts

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