Spike Heels

Theresa Rebeck’s provocative feminist two-act drama Spike Heels, first produced in 1990, is a problem play, that is a drama that looks at cultural, social, and economic issues. Problem plays intended to participate in the cultural conversation have a long and significant history in the theater. Playwrights like the Ancient Greek Euripides, 19th century Henrik Ibsen and George Bernard Shaw (whose presence looms large in Spike Heels), and a wide number of contemporary playwrights have investigated racism, sexism, immigrant rights, and economic inequalities in their work. Problem plays often forsake rich character development and believable plot, instead using these features to raise awareness and get an audience to interrogate their own positions of hot button topics. This is true in the case of Spike Heels, which revolves around the role of gender in defining social status, the problematic position of women in the workplace, the relationship between power and gender, and ultimately the dynamic between sexual identity and the integrity of self-perception. Initial critical reviews faulted Rebeck’s play for its polemical bent—the characters are unsympathetic and driven by ideology, and the plot is unbelievable.

This study guide uses the 1992 Samuel French paperback.

Plot Summary

The play is set in Boston.