Susan Glaspell Scenes for Two Actors: Trifles and Suppressed Desires

Your scene-study teacher pairs you with another woman and says, “Find something American, early twentieth century, and not Chekhov.” Someone in class says Trifles. You’ve maybe read it in an English class: the farmhouse kitchen, the quilt, the bird. What you don’t know is where a two-person scene sits inside a play that has five characters, or how to play a scene where the most important thing happens in a silence.

Susan Glaspell is a gift for two actors. In Trifles, the men leave the kitchen again and again, and every time they do, the two women are alone with what they’re finding. In Suppressed Desires, her comedy with George Cram Cook, a husband and wife and a visiting sister talk themselves into knots about dreams. Both are short, both are free to read, and both are built out of duets.

The short version: below are six two-person scenes, three from Trifles for two women and three from Suppressed Desires (two for a woman and a man, one for two women), each with the line it starts on, the line it ends on, what each person wants, how the words split, and about how long it runs. After the scenes, there’s a method for learning Glaspell’s broken-off lines and rehearsing the pauses she writes into them.

Start with the free edition, and know what it covers

Project Gutenberg has a free text of Glaspell’s Plays, the 1920 collection that includes both Trifles and Suppressed Desires, and lists it as public domain in the USA. The Duke Center for the Study of the Public Domain explains that works from 1930 entered the US public domain on January 1, 2026, so a book published in 1920 is well inside the line. Outside the US, check your own country’s rules before you copy it.

Every line quoted below is from that Gutenberg edition. Stage directions are left out of the excerpts, and an ellipsis (…) marks an excerpt that starts partway through a speech. Gutenberg keeps Glaspell’s double hyphens for her dashes, and so do we, because those dashes are half the acting. Make sure you and your partner print the same edition, so a dropped word doesn’t cost either of you a cue.

A note on the times. We counted the spoken words in each scene, stage directions out, and divided by 140 a minute. That’s a time on paper, and Glaspell writes long silences, so your staged run will be longer. If you’re entering a festival, check the clock: the International Thespian Excellence Awards acting rules define a duet as a performance for two players, from a published play, that does not exceed five minutes, and say going over may mean disqualification. Each scene below runs under five minutes on paper or comes with a cut that does; time your staged run, since silences add up.

Trifles: three scenes for two women in a cold kitchen

The edition’s front matter says Trifles was first performed by the Provincetown Players at the Wharf Theatre on August 8, 1916, with Glaspell herself as Mrs. Hale. The Wikipedia entry on the play notes that it is loosely based on the John Hossack murder, which Glaspell covered as a reporter for the Des Moines Daily News, filing twenty-six stories on the case. A year later she turned the play into a short story, A Jury of Her Peers.

The setup: John Wright has been found strangled in his bed, and his wife, Minnie, is in jail. The sheriff, the county attorney, and a neighbor search the house for a motive. The sheriff’s wife, Mrs. Peters, and the neighbor’s wife, Mrs. Hale, are there to collect a few things for Minnie. The play gives the women no ages. It calls Mrs. Peters a slight wiry woman, a thin nervous face and Mrs. Hale larger, and Mrs. Hale remembers Minnie singing in the choir thirty years ago.

The men’s kitchen (the first time they’re alone)

It starts when the men go upstairs, on Mrs. Hale’s I’d hate to have men coming into my kitchen, snooping around and criticising. It ends when Mrs. Hale finds the quilt pieces and asks I wonder if she was goin’ to quilt it or just knot it?, just before the men come back down.

MRS. HALE: I’d hate to have men coming into my kitchen, snooping around and criticising.

MRS. PETERS: Of course it’s no more than their duty.

MRS. HALE: Duty’s all right, but I guess that deputy sheriff that came out to make the fire might have got a little of this on. Wish I’d thought of that sooner. Seems mean to talk about her for not having things slicked up when she had to come away in such a hurry.

Source: Susan Glaspell, Trifles, in Plays (1920), Project Gutenberg ebook 59432.

Mrs. Hale wants to defend Minnie, and to make up for the year she stayed away. Mrs. Peters wants to stay on the right side of the law she’s married to, and keeps saying so. It’s about 570 words, about 4 minutes, with Mrs. Hale at about two thirds. The engine is Mrs. Hale’s question Do you think she did it? and Mrs. Peters’s frightened answer. Play the scene as two women who barely know each other deciding, line by line, how much to say.

The quilt and the cage (the discovery)

The men leave for the barn, laughing at the quilt. It starts on Mrs. Hale’s I don’t know as there’s anything so strange, our takin’ up our time with little things and ends on Mrs. Peters’s Somebody--wrung--its--neck.

MRS. HALE: …it’s a lonesome place and always was. I wish I had come over to see Minnie Foster sometimes. I can see now--

MRS. PETERS: Well, you mustn’t reproach yourself, Mrs. Hale. Somehow we just don’t see how it is with other folks until--something comes up.

Source: Susan Glaspell, Trifles, in Plays (1920), Project Gutenberg ebook 59432.

Here the wants trade places. Mrs. Hale wants to know what happened to Minnie; Mrs. Peters, kind and nervous, wants to keep things small, until she’s the one who says what happened to the bird. The full scene is about 800 words, about 5 and three quarter minutes, Mrs. Hale at about 63%. For a festival cut, start on Mrs. Peters’s Why, here’s a bird-cage. It runs about 600 words, about 4 and a quarter minutes, and keeps the broken hinge, Mrs. Hale’s portrait of John Wright as a raw wind that gets to the bone, and the box.

“I know what stillness is” (after the men go back up)

The men come in, ask about the bird, and go back upstairs. It starts on Mrs. Hale’s She liked the bird. She was going to bury it in that pretty box. and ends on Mrs. Peters’s forced laugh, wouldn’t they laugh!, as the men are heard on the stairs.

MRS. PETERS: I know what stillness is. When we homesteaded in Dakota, and my first baby died--after he was two years old, and me with no other then--

MRS. HALE: How soon do you suppose they’ll be through, looking for the evidence?

MRS. PETERS: I know what stillness is. The law has got to punish crime, Mrs. Hale.

Source: Susan Glaspell, Trifles, in Plays (1920), Project Gutenberg ebook 59432.

This is the shortest Trifles scene and the hardest: about 380 words, under 3 minutes on paper, and much longer on its feet. Mrs. Peters wants to hold on to the law and can’t stop remembering; Mrs. Hale wants to say what they both know without saying it. Notice that Mrs. Hale doesn’t answer the dead baby. She changes the subject. That’s not coldness, it’s the only way either of them can keep going.

Suppressed Desires: three scenes in a Washington Square studio

The edition calls Suppressed Desires a comedy in two scenes, written with George Cram Cook, and its original cast list has Glaspell as Henrietta and Cook as her husband, Stephen. Henrietta is wild about psychoanalysis and reads a hidden desire into every dream. Steve, an architect, wants his breakfast. Her sister, Mabel, visiting from Chicago, makes the mistake of mentioning a dream.

Henrietta and Steve: the coffee (Scene I) — a woman and a man

The play’s first page. It starts on Henrietta’s It isn’t the coffee, Steve dear. and ends on Steve’s Let’s not be at each other’s throats the first day of her visit. as Mabel comes in.

HENRIETTA: It isn’t the coffee, Steve dear. There’s nothing the matter with the coffee. There’s something the matter with you.

STEVE: There may be something the matter with my stomach.

HENRIETTA: Your stomach! The trouble is not with your stomach but in your subconscious mind.

STEVE: Subconscious piffle!

Source: Susan Glaspell and George Cram Cook, Suppressed Desires, Scene I, in Plays (1920), Project Gutenberg ebook 59432.

It’s only about 240 words, under 2 minutes, which makes it a fine first assignment or a warm-up before a longer piece. Henrietta wants Steve to see her doctor. Steve wants one quiet morning. It’s a tennis rally: short lines, and every one a return.

Henrietta and Mabel: the Spode plate (Scene I) — two women

Mabel drops a plate, and Henrietta gives her the psychoanalytic look. It starts on Mabel’s Don’t you think it would be a good thing, Henrietta, if we went somewhere else? and ends on Henrietta’s This dream of the hen--. Steve is on stage and silent until his outburst right after, so for a duet, play him as gone.

HENRIETTA: It’s not the plate.

MABEL: For heaven’s sake, what is it then?

HENRIETTA: It’s the significant little false movement that made you drop it.

MABEL: Well, I suppose everyone makes a false movement once in a while.

Source: Susan Glaspell and George Cram Cook, Suppressed Desires, Scene I, in Plays (1920), Project Gutenberg ebook 59432.

About 540 words, under 4 minutes, Henrietta at about 60%. Henrietta wants to rescue her sister from a marriage Mabel didn’t know was a problem. Mabel wants to apologize for a plate and slowly starts to wonder. The comedy works only if Henrietta is completely sincere. Play her as a caring older sister, not a crank, and the audience will do the laughing.

Henrietta and Steve: “I’ve been psyched” (Scene II) — a woman and a man

Two weeks later, Steve comes home from the doctor. It starts on his What are you doing, my dear? and ends on Henrietta’s I wish you would leave me.

STEVE: He said my dream of the walls receding and leaving me alone in a forest indicates a suppressed desire--

HENRIETTA: Yes--yes!

STEVE: To be freed from--

HENRIETTA: Yes--freed from--?

STEVE: Marriage.

HENRIETTA: Marriage!

Source: Susan Glaspell and George Cram Cook, Suppressed Desires, Scene II, in Plays (1920), Project Gutenberg ebook 59432.

The full scene is about 940 words, about 6 and three quarter minutes, and Henrietta has about 56%. Steve wants to turn Henrietta’s own theory on her, and enjoys every second of it. Henrietta wants to stay a believer while her marriage is analyzed out from under her. For a cut, start on Steve’s How long is it we’ve lived here, Henrietta?: about 610 words, about 4 and a half minutes, and it keeps his sad look at the view, which pays off when she accuses him of being happy.

Learn the broken lines exactly

Glaspell’s people rarely finish a sentence. I can see now--, To be freed from--, Somebody--wrung--its--neck. Those dashes are where the thought stops, and your partner’s cue is often the half-line before it. If you paraphrase, you’ll smooth them out, and the scene goes flat.

So learn by testing, not rereading. In Roediger and Karpicke’s 2006 study, students who tested themselves remembered more a week later than students who studied the text again. For lines, that means covering your speech, saying it out loud, and checking. Our free cue script maker gives you only your lines with the last words before each one, and the first-letter memorizer turns a speech into initials to test yourself on.

• Learn the dash as part of the line: say Yes--freed from--? with the stop in it every time, so the break is in your memory, not added later.
• Learn the repeated lines in their places. Mrs. Peters says I know what stillness is. twice, and the second time it means something else.
• Learn your partner’s last few words before each of your lines, so you come in on the right thought, not just the right sound.

Then take the scene into Offbook to run it. Upload it from the Gutenberg text, pick your part, and realistic voices read the other one and wait for you to say your line before they go on. Hide your lines once you know the shape of the scene, and say each one from memory with your partner’s lines still showing, which is the test-yourself method in practice.

Rehearse the silences on purpose

Trifles has more stage directions than dialogue in places. The women look at each other, look away, hide a box, and say nothing while the men walk overhead. Our guide to pauses in acting covers the general idea; here it’s specific. Every silence in this play is a decision: to keep quiet, to hide, to change the subject.

Mark each one in your script with what your character decides in it. When Mrs. Hale doesn’t answer the dead baby, she decides not to. When Mrs. Peters can’t touch the bird, she decides she can’t. A silence with a decision in it reads as tension. A silence without one reads as a dropped cue.

To rehearse those pauses alone, set Offbook’s line detection to Manual, which never moves on by itself, so the next cue waits as long as your silence takes. For more ways to work without your partner, see how to rehearse a scene alone.

Stage it with two chairs

Both plays are kitchen-table plays, and that’s good news for a duet. The festival rules quoted above allow two chairs and no other furniture, and no props or costumes. So the quilt pieces, the bird-cage, and the box in Trifles, and the plate and the giant book in Suppressed Desires, become things you handle in the air.

Decide exactly where each object is, and keep it there every run. In the cage scene, if Mrs. Peters sets the cage on the table to her left, it has to stay on her left every time either woman looks at it again. Rehearse the mimed business as carefully as the words: the moment Mrs. Hale slides the box under the quilt pieces, the last thing before the men come back in, only lands if the audience can see the box.

For class, you’ll usually have more freedom. Ask your teacher what furniture and props you can use, and work through our guide to preparing a scene for acting class. For more two-person material from other writers, browse our scenes for two women and the full scripts in our play library.

Questions actors ask

What scenes from Trifles work for acting class?

The three above are the play’s two-person scenes: the women alone in the kitchen while the men are upstairs, the discovery of the cage and the bird while the men are in the barn, and the “stillness” exchange after the men go back up. The cage scene is the most complete, with a clear start, a discovery, and a turn.

Is Trifles in the public domain?

In the US, yes. It was published in the 1920 collection Plays, and works published in 1930 or earlier are public domain there as of 2026. Project Gutenberg lists that collection as public domain in the USA. Outside the US, check your country’s rules.

How long is Trifles?

It’s a one-act. We count about 3,450 spoken words, so about 25 minutes of talk on paper, and longer staged with its silences. Time your own run before you plan a cut.

Can a man and a woman do a scene from Trifles?

Not really: the men and the women are almost never alone together, and the play’s point is that they see different things. For a woman and a man, take one of the two Henrietta and Steve scenes from Suppressed Desires, or see our dramatic scenes for a man and a woman.

Can I rehearse a Glaspell scene without my partner?

Yes. Rehearse on your laptop with the full script on a big screen, and Offbook’s voices read your partner’s lines and wait for yours. You can also listen to your scenes on your phone anywhere, which helps with the run of a long scene on the way to class.