WHO IS SOPHIE TREADWELL?

Today, she is considered as one of Americas most prominent women playwrights of the first half of the 20th century. As a playwright, journalist, women's rights advocate, and novelist, Sophie Treadwell kept a professional career that spanned close to sixty years. Treadwell was the author of 40 plays and was one of only a few women dramatists who directed and produced many of her own works. Machinal, a 1928 expressionist drama (conveys feelings and emotions) is one of her most wellknown plays that was based loosely on a sensational murder trial in New York and has received numerous revivals in the past decade, most notably by the New York Shakespeare Festival, the Royal National Theatre in London and the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco.

WHERE DOES SOPHIE TREADWELL FIT IN A CURRICULUM?

American

Literature class Drama class Men and Women in Literature class

10th-11th

grades

WRITERS GENRE/STYLE
Treadwell

wrote expressionist drama plays. Her writing is a little difficult to read because it is somewhat strange and often has a fast pace with overlap of what is going on; for example the characters are all in the same conversation, but they are having two conversations at once. This writing technique could be confusing. Treadwell also wrote monologues throughout her plays that are very different from monologues in other plays (as shown on slide 6).

ADVANTAGES/DISADVANTAGES
Very

fun writing style and has some humor in it (hotdog). Fast paced reading.

Strange

writing style; makes it a bit difficult to read. Overlap of conversations can make it confusing for readers.

OVERVIEW:
Machinal

is an expressionist drama. The main characters: a young woman who is a typewriter in the office (episode 1), a pregnant woman (episode 4), and a person receiving the death penalty (episode 9). Setting (In the three episodes assigned): an office, a hospital room, and a prison room.

WHY THIS PASSAGE?

It shows how quirky, fun, fast-paced and sometimes confusing, Sophie Treadwells writing is. It shows how it can be difficult to understand (especially since this is the first part of play and how it opens up).

Based on this passage, would you use Sophie Treadwell in your classroom if you were teaching a class on drama?

CREATIVE ASSIGNMENT 1:
Write a monologue! Pick an experience true to you where you were frantic, scared, confused, or nervous and write a monologue the way in which Treadwell does (short, frantic lines often with a character talking to themselves during a dilemma or problem) in order to calm yourself down or vent. Think of a situation, then write a page monologue in Treadwells form. EX.) Marry me- wants to marry me- George H. Jones- George H. Jones and Company- Mrs. George H. Jones- Mrs. George H. Jones. Dear Madame- marry- do you take this man to be your wedded husband- I do- to love and honor and to love- kisses- no- I cant- George H. Jones

CREATIVE ASSIGNMENT 2:
Free-Write! Write a free-write as to why you believe Sophie Treadwell named the play Machinal. What does the role of machines have to do with the play as a whole? In your free-write also include: What role machines play in your life today What object/theme you would pick if you were to write a play in the present. How and why would this object fit in with your play?