Trifles, by Susan Glaaspell:
This is another play that deals with strong character traits and depicts how those traits are perceived within our society. Overall it portrays women in both a positive and negative light, while the men tend to come off as being chauvinistic and downright inept.
Now, this is an early 20th Century play and  Glaspell makes a great point in showing that women are just as capable as men are at solving issues or conundrums and still they can be often overlooked as a source of positive contribution to the society in which they live. This is slightly less relevant by today's standards, but the central idea of the play still resonates within today's society. The reason being is that it speaks to us as human beings and we can relate to how it might feel to be someone who gets overlooked by their peers and yet is more than capable of performing an action just as well as they. The feel and look of this play are clearly defined by the surrounds of a rural town consisting of down-home folks who know each other well and are typically in each other's business.
That being said, Dr. Fletcher's question is a very interesting one indeed, because this play is very much naturalistic by design and might not work as a more abstract stripped down version of itself....or maybe it could work.
It's quite possible that a blatant white-wash of these characters' environment may take away from the overall effect and meaning of the play itself in which Glaspell intends to convey natural human reactions. Then again, it could make the characters strengths and weaknesses come across more effectively than the standard set piece of the play might achieve. The reason being is that if we take away the backdrop of this play we're still left with some very defined central characters that stand out from the tertiary characters (the men) thus granting the slightly feministic overtones to truly shine without distraction. However, I tend to be of the mind that if you strip away these character's surroundings the play will likely suffer and lose it's effectiveness in portraying true to life reactions that would likely happen in reaction to a situation like murder. If you take away the defined time,  place, era, and cultural background of these characters the audience will most likely miss out on the central theme of this play. It might be harder to even invest in the moments of tension that Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peter share when they discover the truth about Mrs. Wright murdering her husband if all of their surroundings become more of a question than an exact depiction. In my opinion the play stands to lose more than gain from a minimalist approach to the production design. That's not to say it couldn't be done, on the contrary it most definitely could be, of course, that's not to say it should be.