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Visual Play Trifles By Susan Glaspell

Decent Essays

There are several similarities and differences to be seen when comparing a written text to a visual play acted out in front of you. Both texts and visuals have a strong power to draw in their audience. The text-based drama Trifles and the visual-based drama Trifles have several similarities and differences that arise from reading versus watching the play. Text-based dramas rely on the words spoken from each character while visual-based dramas utilize stage sets, facial expressions, costumes and props in order to convey their message through the story. Trifles is a play written by Susan Glaspell that has been replicated many times on stage. This play was written in 1916 about a group of people trying to uncover the mysteries of the death of John Wright. Before the first …show more content…

There is also a difference in the Sheriff's response when reading the play versus watching it. In the text, the Sheriff states, I knew you could get back from Omaha by today and as long as I went over everything here myself (Glaspell 14-15). The reader could interpret this to be a casual sentence as well as when the attorney was speaking and the Sheriff could be portraying friendship with the attorney. However, in the visual representation of the play, the viewer can see the Sheriff put his arms out in a subtle frustration. After hearing the attorney's tone of voice, the Sheriff has a defensive attitude that is not portrayed in the text. This body language and tone of voice changes from text to visuals because the reader has more creative freedom to imagine a slightly different tone of voice or body language. If the playwright did not say that the sheriff put his arms out, then the reader would not imagine that kind of frustration. However, this is why playwrights utilize stage directions. These stage directions give the reader a chance to see movement from the

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