A summary of Trifles

Though Susan Glaspell claimed that she only wrote plays because Jig told her to, her plays were well received and some of them are still quite well known. Trifles, a very short one-act play based on a murder case that she covered while at Des Moines Daily News, is probably her best known and most studied work. The central character, a woman arrested for the murder of her husband, never made an appearance on stage, but her actions and motives are easily reconstructed and understood by the women of her community, while patronizing male authorities overlook solid evidence as meaningless 'women's things'. In an act of solidarity, the women arrange the evidence to support their sense of justice toward what they see as a justifiable homicide. 

Her success as a playwright may have made up for the poor reception of Fidelity, which was published in 1915; certainly she wouldn't write another novel for almost a decade. The enthusiastic reception of Trifles, on the other hand, encouraged the Provinceton Players to move to Greenwich Village in New York. Remaining a club, tickets were only sold to subscribers, the stated mission of the Players was to produce "plays written by its active members, or by others in whose work was accepted, and a very young Edna St. Vincent Millay actually joined as an actress before venturing to offer her scripts into the club. 

Also, Glaspell subscribed to what could be called a puritan work ethic, writing to a sctrict morning schedule that allowed her to sell many short stories to a lucrative magazine market. She even reworked a few of her plays into stories (Trifles became "A Jury of Her Peers") and vice versa. 

The time setting is in the 20th century during the cold weather. The place setting takes action in the kitchen of a farmhouse in the American Midwest. 

Based on the stage performance, the opening scene of the one-act play introduces the scene, which remains static throughout the play. Also, presents the main characters in "Trifles", who are George Henderson as the County Attorney, Mr. Peters as the sheriff, Mrs. Peters and Mr. Hale as the neighbor farmer, and Mrs. Hale. All of the actors stand in the kitchen of John and Millie Wright, with the men looking around and the women looking nervous. They gather around the fire as the sheriff tells Mr. Hale to tell Mr. Henderson what he witnessed the day before when he went to meet John Wright. So Mr. Hale told his story. He said that no one answered the door, but thinks that he heard Mrs. Wright told him to come in. He saw her on the rocking chair, pleating an apron and looking queer. Mr. Hale requested for John, but Millie Wright simply said that her husband is dead upstairs with rope around his neck. 

While the men, County Attorney and Mr. Hale then went upstairs to investigate further, Mrs. Hale reminisces about how happy Mrs. Wright had been before her marriage. Mrs. Hale expressed her regrets by not visiting Millie Wright. Both Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters were looking around the room to collect things for Millie Wright, the women discover a quilt. The men continually disparage the women for worrying about trifles instead of the case. Meanwhile, the women discover an empty bird cage and a dead bird in a Millie Wright's sewing basket while looking for a pair of scissors to fix the quilt. The bird has been strangled with a string around its neck, just as John Wright. However, the women didn't expose the evidence they found to the men. They continue to discuss the implications of crime and punishment and the men leave unsatisfied because they were unable to find any clinching evidence that will prevent her from being acquitted by a future jury. The play ends with projected conclusion that Millie Wright will not be found guilty without a motive, even though the men thought that she decided to "knot it". 

After watching the video of the stage performance, I would personally choose to read the play instead. This is because the actors used a slang that is less familiar. However, after reading the play, watching the video helps to understand the play better. 

References:

1. http://www.gradesaver.com/trifles/study-guide/short-summary/
2. http://www.supersummary.com/drama/13-plot-summary-of-trifles-by-susan-glaspell?start=1