The Verge

Verge, The

    Author: Susan Glaspell

    First Performance: 1921, New York

    Published: 1922

    Genre: Drama in 3 acts

    Setting: A greenhouse and a ‘twisted tower’, USA, 1920s

    Cast: 5m, 4f

Claire Archer is a plant scientist, attempting to cultivate an entirely new species in her experimental greenhouse. Similarly, in her relations with her husband Harry, her friend Dick, and her lover Tom Edgeworthy, she is hoping to go beyond conventional gender relationships to ‘achieve integrity in otherness’. She dismisses her daughter Elizabeth, who seems entirely happy to conform to the conventional role of woman. Although it appears to ‘go outside what it was’, her newly developed ‘Edge Vine’ proves infertile, so Claire uproots it. Despite the scepticism of the men, she persists with her experiments and succeeds in...

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