The reviews are in for The Verge, Fiasco Theater’s revival of Susan Glaspell’s 1921 play, which opened at The Public Theater on Thursday, November 5. Miriam Silverman plays Claire Archer, a botanist trying to breed a plant unlike anything that has grown before, while her husband, her lover and her oldest friend crowd into her greenhouse during a snowstorm; Jessie Austrian directs. The critics agree about Silverman far more than they agree about Glaspell. Nearly all of them credit her with the evening’s energy, but they part company over whether this staging makes the case for the play: TheaterMania and Exeunt NYC come away calling for a rediscovery, while Vulture, New York Theatre Guide and Culture Sauce found a long, literal and rather earthbound night.
The verdict: eight reviews in, two of them scored: 3 out of 5 from New York Stage Review and 2 out of 5 from Culture Sauce. The argument is about the play, not the star. Miriam Silverman’s Claire is praised almost everywhere, though Vulture wanted still more wildness from her. Kenji Fujishima at TheaterMania and Loren Noveck at Exeunt NYC are convinced Glaspell deserves her place back in the repertory; Sara Holdren at Vulture, Christian Lewis at New York Theatre Guide and Thom Geier at Culture Sauce find Jessie Austrian’s production too literal or too slow for so strange a text. The New York Times reviewed it alongside Rope.
What are critics saying about The Verge?
The New York Times
"‘Rope’ and ‘The Verge’: The Joy of Sex and Death"
Reviewer: Helen Shaw
Shaw reviews the revival together with The New Group’s Rope, reading both as plays of the 1920s, shaped by the new Freudian vocabulary, in which desire, rebellion and death sit close together.
"…Susan Glaspell’s odd hybrid “The Verge,” from 1921, which grafts a liberatory feminist domestic comedy onto a psychosexual tragedy"
She notes how often the play calls Claire “queer” in the older sense of strange, and singles out Amara Leonard, as Claire’s conventional daughter, for her comedy.
Vulture
"The Verge Needs to Be Much Weirder Than This"
Reviewer: Sara Holdren
Holdren admires the ambition of bringing Glaspell back to the stage, but calls the play itself a mess that needs a director willing to take real risks with it.
"Austrian, though, with the exception of a few appealing transitions, has played it thoroughly straight."
She finds the greenhouse set, the unchanging light and the familiar style of playing far too literal for such a strange text, and while Silverman brings some wildness to Claire, Holdren wanted more and feels the production keeps her boxed in.
TheaterMania
"Revival of The Verge Aims to Bring Susan Glaspell Back Into the Canon"
Reviewer: Kenji Fujishima
Fujishima sets the play beside O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape, now revived at Irish Rep, and calls Glaspell’s neglect a real historical oversight.
"Based on the dark poetry and feminist verve of The Verge, Glaspell’s oeuvre is one worth rediscovering."
He praises Silverman for stressing Claire’s excess of passion without overplaying her madness, has doubts about some of Austrian’s additions, including a back wall tilted into the air for the third act, but decides the writing outweighs the production’s oddities.
New York Stage Review
"The Verge: A Portrait in Discontent"
Reviewer: Michael Sommers · 3 out of 5
Sommers welcomes a rare chance to see a famous title from the Provincetown Players era, and finds Austrian’s production handsome and steadily paced.
"Ultimately the verbose, symbol-coded play scarcely proves to be a lost masterpiece"
He likens Silverman’s bright early scenes to Irene Dunne in screwball mode and admires how she darkens as Claire unravels; some of the supporting turns strike him as stolid, but he counts finally meeting the play as a pleasure.
Culture Sauce
"‘The Verge’ digs up a century-old Susan Glaspell rarity that never takes root"
Reviewer: Thom Geier · 2 out of 5
Geier can see why the play was radical in 1921, and credits Silverman with Claire’s intelligence and prickliness, but argues that a heroine who resists both understanding and sympathy, and never changes course, leaves even a gifted actress little to work with.
"…there’s a lot of antiquated speechifying that makes The Verge a very long and rather dull sit."
He does enjoy the flashes of farce, which he thinks Austrian stages well.
Talkin’ Broadway
Reviewer: Howard Miller
Miller calls the evening an imperfect mix of comedy and psychological study, and places Glaspell beside Caryl Churchill as a writer who questions social norms through a feminist lens.
"…the two hours we spend with it are vastly elevated thanks to a riveting, at times breathtaking performance by Miriam Silverman."
He finds the first act playing almost like a screwball comedy before the play turns darker, and credits Silverman with carrying it the rest of the way.
New York Theatre Guide
"forgotten feminist play takes root on stage once more"
Reviewer: Christian Lewis
Lewis argues that Glaspell deserves to be far better known and calls the play a feminist manifesto, but also a dense, monologue-heavy text that is hard work to follow in the theater.
"…this production does not make a case for it being performed."
He praises Silverman’s angry, playful Claire and the sets and period costumes, faults the slow pace and some of the supporting performances, and suggests the play might need trimming or adapting to reach audiences today.
Read Christian Lewis’s full review at New York Theatre Guide
Exeunt NYC
"This Susan Glaspell revival rises and falls on the strength of its central actor–and fortunately this production has Miriam Silverman."
Reviewer: Loren Noveck
Noveck is the most enthusiastic critic here. She reads Claire as a woman who flouts nearly every rule of feminine behavior, and finds those rules uncomfortably familiar a century on.
"Claire is the incandescent core of the play, the blazing lightbulb toward which the other characters flutter like moths"
She admires Austrian’s physical work with the Fiasco ensemble, finds one turret-room scene fussy, and leaves convinced the play still speaks to the present.
Production photographs by Valerie Terranova.
For more of what the New York critics have been saying this week, read our roundups for Waiting for Lefty at Classic Stage Company and for Rope at the Theater at St. Clement’s, the play The New York Times paired with The Verge.
The Verge runs at The Public Theater’s LuEsther Hall, 425 Lafayette Street, through Sunday, November 22, 2026.
