Playing Provincetown

In the summer of 1915, a restless collection of Greenwich Village artists gathered in the cool seaside air of Provincetown, Massachusetts—writers, dreamers, and social radicals determined to create something new. Their experiments sparked the Provincetown Players—and triggered a revolution in American theater. Playing Provincetown recaptures those debut performances at the Wharf Theater through three one-act plays that express the wit, courage, and social insight of their time.

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Constancy

by Neith Boyce (1915)

Set in a modest seaside cottage, Constancy explores fidelity and the shifting expectations of love at a time when women were beginning to claim new freedoms. The play centers on Moira, an artist who challenges traditional gender roles, and her lover, Rex, a writer wrestling with jealousy and self-importance. Their conversation—part flirtation, part philosophical duel—reveals the tension between artistic ideals and human frailty. Boyce, herself a novelist and suffragist, crafts a battle of intellect and emotion that mirrors the early feminist conversations stirring in Greenwich Village. Beneath its civilized tone, Constancy asks a timeless question: can love survive equality?

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Suppressed Desires

by Susan Glaspell and George Cram “Jig” Cook (1915)

A sharp, comedic send-up of the era’s obsession with psychoanalysis, Suppressed Desires follows a well-intentioned wife who tries to improve her marriage by diagnosing everyone around her. Henrietta Brewster, newly converted to Freud’s theories, is determined to unearth her husband Stephen’s hidden complexes—whether he has any or not. Her relentless probing drives both Stephen and her visiting sister to the brink of madness. With brisk dialogue and biting humor, Glaspell and Cook expose how intellectual fashion can distort genuine human connection. The play’s humor still resonates today, poking fun at our eternal tendency to self-analyze, overthink, and project meaning where there may be none.

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Trifles

by Susan Glaspell (1916)

In Trifles, Glaspell moves from satire to suspense. Inspired by a real murder case she once covered as a journalist, the play examines the quiet power of observation—and the silent worlds of women. When a farmer is found dead, two women accompany the sheriff and county attorney to the crime scene. As the men search for evidence, dismissing the “trifles” of domestic life, the women uncover the emotional truth behind the killing. Glaspell’s masterful use of subtext transforms what seems like a simple investigation into a profound indictment of gendered justice. A century later, Trifles remains a cornerstone of American drama and an early landmark of feminist storytelling.

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Together, these three short plays chart the birth of a new voice in theater—intimate, socially conscious, and unafraid to question the structures of power. Playing Provincetown returns these voices to the stage, reminding us that artistic revolutions might begin not in a grand theater, but in a wharf by the sea.​