Susan Glaspell's Trifles is a play about communication and domestic abuse, two topics that are just as relevant here in Columbia, South Carolina in 2015 as they were in New York City in 1916. It offers a compelling portrait of the differing ways in which men communicate with other men and women communicate with other women, often resulting in miscommunication and condescension between men and women. In Trifles, the women navigate a society constructed by men for men, using their own modes of communication to carve a small place for themselves and even intentionally taking advantage of the men's condescension to withhold information from them. The effects of this old society are still with us today in the ways men and women interact with each other. By viewing it in the context of the old, the play forces us to recognize the effects still present in our own society.
Another major subject in the play is domestic abuse. The plot centers around the investigation of a wife who killed her abusive husband, and the different ways in which the men and women react to this action. The men are ready to throw the wife in jail for the rest of her life, while the women are more sympathetic, understanding what she'd been through and that understanding allows them to solve the case in a way which the men cannot. The issue of domestic abuse is particularly relevant in South Carolina, a state which in 2014 ranked number two in the nation for highest number of women killed by men and has been in the top ten since 2000. Even recent events on-campus demonstrate that this is not a problem restricted to just women.
This production of Trifles will follow a realistic style. It will remain set in the kitchen of a farmhouse in 1916, with a realistic set, lighting, and period appropriate costumes. The kitchen will have three doors, a large iron stove, cabinets, an old fashioned wash stand, and a table and chairs in the middle. By maintaining the old setting a contrast is created that brings attention to the issues in the play that are still unresolved one hundred years later.