SOURCE: Bitonti, Tracy Simmons. “More than Noises Off: Marsha Norman's Offstage Characters.” In Shaw and Other Matters, edited by Susan Rusinko, pp. 166-79. London: Associated University Presses, 1998.

In the following essay, Bitonti discusses how Norman utilizes off-stage characters as a recurrent theatrical technique in her plays, arguing that these characters exert a strong influence on Norman's on-stage characters and plots.

In a 1983 New York Times article, drama critic Mel Gussow celebrated the increasing numbers of new women dramatists emerging in a theater that had previously been “a male preserve.”¹ Among the women gaining recognition for their playwriting talents were Beth Henley, Tina Howe, and, especially, Marsha Norman. Norman's drama career began in 1977 with Getting Out, and in 1983, she won a Pulitzer Prize for 'night, Mother. A 1988 volume, Four Plays, made more easily available not only Getting Out but also the two one acts that make up Third and...