SOURCE: Robinson, Marc. “Gertrude Stein, Forgotten Playwright.” The South Atlantic Quarterly 91, no. 3 (summer 1992): 621-43.

In the following essay, Robinson evaluates Stein's plays in the context of her unique voice in the evolution of twentieth-century American theatrical conventions.

While Gertrude Stein was quietly bringing out her first plays with an obscure Boston publisher in 1922, The Hairy Ape began performances in New York, establishing Eugene O'Neill as the nation's most serious, “difficult” playwright. A year later, Elmer Rice would announce his own reputation with The Adding Machine. Both plays were anxious efforts, written by authors fearless about exposing their characters' aggrieved interiors—the “soul” that this particular variety of American drama would quickly make its province. Stein traveled much the same region in Geography and Plays, the title of that first collection, but her voice was quieter, the temper bemused rather than raucous, and her approach to her characters a...