[El Peter]

'Chains of Dew' (1919), was performed for the first and last time in 1922, and this Orange Tree production is the first revival. The play was written as a response to the birth control movement and the difficulties it faced when circulating written information. Though its subject is serious, the play is witty and interesting enough to have had Glaspell called 'the American Shaw', one reviewer of a later play, 'The Verge' (1925) likening her work to that of Ibsen (see www.susanglaspell.org).

The link gets the present performance dates slightly wrong. 'Chains of Dew' has run 12 March-5 April, with 12 and 19 April, and finally 21-26 April still to come. What the Orange Tree has also done is to devote the period 7-19 April to three of her short plays, 'Trifles', 'Suppressed Desires', and 'The Outside'. There's also a day of seminars on the playwright (see orangetreetheatre.co.uk).

I've seen 'Chains of Dew' but not the shorter plays which have other actors as well as some who appear in the longer play. There are some lovely performances and quite a few laughs to be had, although I thought the set-up took a little longer than it needed, while the play's end is ambiguous perhaps because the struggle it concerns itself with is still not finally resolved. The tensions made clear between East Coast US liberalism and Mid-Western conservative values in the 1920s, remain active, but the play does not place all its characters into hard and fast categories, which is part of the fun and the good play-attending it provides.