NCC to present feminist play 'Trifles'
A man is found murdered in a Midwestern farmhouse.
As a collection of neighbors and police descend on the crime scene, clues regarded as inconsequential by the men in the group are seized on by the women, whose insights and sensibilities lead to the perpetrator.
The story, told in Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Susan Glaspell's one-act play "Trifles," comes to the Meiley-Swallow Hall stage on North Central College's Naperville campus for three performances this weekend, beginning at 7:30 p.m. today.
Though written in 1916, the play's themes of misogyny and domestic abuse remain pertinent concerns in today's society, said student director Valerie Heckman, a senior theater major.
"When I first read the play, I didn't realize how long ago it was written," she said, adding that she initially took it for a period piece written by a modern playwright. "Sadly, a lot of the oppression of women still exists today."
Heckman said Glaspell wrote the play for the famed Provincetown Players, a group she helped launch. The story is based on a murder trial Glaspell covered as a reporter, a story she later adapted into a short story, "A Jury of Her Peers."
"It's considered one of the earliest American feminist plays, if not the earliest," said Heckman. "When the play was written, women couldn't vote, women couldn't sit on juries. My intent was to make it still seem significant today. I find it socially relevant. Our hope is to look at it through a 2009 perspective."
Heckman said she's chosen to use a color palette of black and white, with an overlay of red accents, to stage the show, a color scheme favored by American artist Barbara Kruger. Kruger's work, she said, is often critical of social mores, particularly sexism.
"I'm trying to invoke the cast in black and white and the trifles are red," she said, adding that the "trifles" of the title are the details, dismissed by the male characters, that eventually lead to solving the case.
Ali Ledbetter, a freshman from Galesburg, plays Mrs. Hale, a farmer's wife.
"Originally, Susan Glaspell wrote herself into the play (as Mrs. Hale)," Ledbetter said. "Mrs. Hale was condemning the men for looking down on the women. She's an older woman. She's a kind woman, she's open. In the stage directions, they describe her as a 'comfortable woman.'"
Ledbetter, who appeared last fall in North Central's "The Diary of Anne Frank" as Anne Frank's mother, said she jumped at the chance to audition for a role in "Trifles" after studying the play as a senior at Galesburg High School.
The underlying issues are compelling, she said, as is the fluid dialogue that courses through the one-hour drama.
Mrs. Hale's attitudes are revealed almost immediately.
"Even within the first five minutes, she has a line, 'Men's hands aren't as clean as they might be,'" Ledbetter said.
'Trifles' cast
Mrs. Hale: Alexis "Ali" Ledbetter of Galesburg
Lewis Hale: Bruce Reif of Springfield
Henry Peters: Eric Quinn of Naperville
Mrs. Peters: Kathryn Bauer of Wheaton
George Henderson: Curtis Stelter of Lemont
<div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Stories</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=262937">Inside NCC's production of 'Trifles' <span class="date">[01/08/09]</span></a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>