First Priority Club Newsletter - August 2017

FURTHER READINGS A READING SERIES THAT FURTHER EXPLORES THE WORK OF OUR FAVORITE PLAYWRIGHTS.

THE WILD GOOSE

by Teresa Deevy Directed by Aidan Redmond Monday, September 18th at 7pm THE SUITCASE UNDER THE BED

By Teresa Deevy Through September 30 Tue - Sat 7:30pm; Sat & Sun 2pm Wed Matinees 9/06, 9/20 & 9/27 No performance 9/5 & 9/24

Coming Up! A Further Readings Event THE WILD GOOSE

by Teresa Deevy September 18th at 7pm at Theatre Row FREE for FPC members Call (212) 315-0231 to reserve your spot

Announcing...

HINDLE WAKES

by Stanley Houghton Directed by Gus Kaikkonen Tues - Sat 7:30pm; Sat & Sun 2pm Wed Matinees: 1/17 & 2/14

December 26 - February 25 On sale now!

Call (212) 315-0231 and reserve your FPC ticket today!

The Beckett Theatre, Theatre Row FREE for First Priority Club members

“Go save the world, and what good is that if there isn’t feeling between people?”

First produced in 1936 by Dublin’s Abbey Theatre, The Wild Goose poses the question: In a time of persecution, is it better to go off and fight—or stay home and live the life that is worth fighting for?

The year is 1692. Penal Law is forcing the Irish people to practice Catholicism in secret, or face the wrath of cruel British soldiers. Martin Shea is a young man, struggling to find his purpose in a dangerous and chaotic world. Should he join the army of “wild geese” bound for France, stay home and marry the girl he loves, or feed his spiritual yearning by studying to be a priest?

Martin Shea is Deevy’s Hamlet, a man who is “full of ideas and energy, but can never come to a final decision,” as described by the critic for Christian Science Monitor, who went on to write: The play is really a study in characterization and every character in it is clearcut. Every scene is a picture full of life and color, and there is an atmosphere of tenseness in which situation after situation develops and arises naturally and inevitably… It is a struggle of human beings against overwhelming odds in which the material is at war with the spiritual and instinct grapples with despair and hopelessness.

There is something about this play and its manner of presentation that is above the usual high Abbey level. It is different and it makes one forget that one is in a theater. The period means nothing nor does the Anglo-Irish idiom pin it down to nationality. It is universally human and it contains the humanities of the ages.

Other critics also lauded Teresa Deevy for her masterful recreation of a bygone era. “Miss Deevy…takes us back to an Ireland which few modern writers have been able to show more convincingly,” the Irish Times wrote, praising the play’s “amazingly vivid picture of downtrodden peasants still struggling against enormous odds. The priests are hunted, the cottages burned, and even the men in whom the fighting spirit is left are too bewildered to know how to fight.”

The Wild Goose marked the end of an amazing run of six plays in six years for Deevy as an Abbey dramatist.

Mint is proud to present, The Wild Goose, as a one-night Further Reading on September 18th.

For reservations call 212.315.0231

What’s next at the Mint...

Hindle Wakes

by Stanley Houghton

Directed by Gus Kaikkonen December 26, 2017 - February 25, 2018

“Few other plays explore so unflinchingly the profound, and profoundly English, connection between sex, money, and class.”

- The Sunday Times, 1998

During the “Wakes Week” holiday in Hindle, the mill is closed for maintenance. Like many of the workers, Fanny Hawthorn is at the seashore with a girlfriend—until she finds better entertainment in a hotel room with Alan Jeffcote, son of the mill’s owner. When their families learn the truth, they agree the two must be married at once, despite a chasm of wealth and power. But Alan is already engaged to one of the town elites. Will he do the right thing and make an honest woman of Fanny, or will he do the right thing and stand by his fiancé, whom he loves?

Hindle Wakes premiered in London in 1912, where many critics called it the best play of the year. The Sunday Times hailed Hindle Wakes as “a work of illuminating force…as timely as it is significant” while the Observer noted, “to see Hindle Wakes is to have enlarged one’s life.” Conservative theatergoers, however, disagreed—and the play’s unsentimental depiction of two young people seeking pleasure without commitment sparked moral outrage.

England’s newspapers were full of discussion on Hindle Wakes: reviews, reports, interviews, and countless letters from audience members—all arguing over the play and its controversial subject. According to The Guardian, the play “not only scandalized playgoers, but persons who had never been inside a theatre and who were never likely to visit one, joined in the general outcry.” Even the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University rallied to have the play banned. The controversy did not harm business and Hindle Wakes was a hit.

In New York, however, it failed to find an audience when it opened on Broadway in 1912. Perhaps because it was “very poorly acted” according the headline of the Times review, “The actors seemed carelessly rehearsed… A door slammed on the right side of the stage and the actor entered from the left,” and so forth.

New York tried again in 1922—this time under the title Fanny Hawthorn. “In spite of this new, soft name, it remains one of the most challenging, original and human plays of the English theatre of our day,” wrote the New York Call. “It is not extravagant to say,” wrote Theatre Magazine, “that Hindle Wakes is one of the best plays of modern times.” However, critical acclaim did not lead to audiences, and that was the last time the play was seen in New York.

Stanley Houghton, along with Harold Brighouse (Hobson’s Choice) and Allan Monkhouse (whose Mary Broome Mint produced in 2012), was a prominent Photo from the 1927 film directed by Maurice Elvey member of the “Manchester School” of dramatists, focused on realistic depictions of middle-class life and championed by Annie Horniman and her Gaiety Theatre. Hindle Wakes was Houghton’s greatest triumph, solidifying his position as a rising star of the British Theatre before he died suddenly of meningitis in 1913, at the untimely age of 32.

Mint Theater is proud to finally introduce Stanley Houghton’s Hindle Wakes to New York theatregoers in its first New York revival in 95 years.

Tickets on sale now exclusuively to FPC members! Call: (212) 315-0231

3UPCOMING ENRICHMINT EVENTS Jacqui Deevy is Teresa’s grandniece and literary executor — a role she inherited from her father. Jacqui grew up living in “Landscape”, the Deevy family home in Waterford, where Tessa (as she was known by her family and friends) was born and lived. Jacqui and director Jonathan Bank first met at Landscape in 2010, where together they poured over the contents of the “suitcase under the bed.”

Jacqui Deevy and Artistic Director Jonathan Bank Jacqui will share stories of Tessa and her family, and share her insights on the work of her great Aunt. The Suitcase Under the Bed contains work that she has never seen performed, making her presence in New York an event with special meaning.

Special Brunch Event: SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 9 before the matinee Post-Show Discussion: SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 10 after the matinee Where: West Bank Cafe, 407 West 42nd Street Cost: $99.75 — includes Brunch, Premium Seating for the matinee, and a copy of Teresa Deevy Reclaimed, signed by Jacqui Deevy.

For more information or to reserve your place, call: 212.315.0231

Also: SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 17 after the matinee LOVE AND MARRIAGE IN TERESA DEEVY’S IRELAND Tara Harney-Mahajan, PhD Tara Harney-Mahajan received her PhD in English from the University of Connecticut and is currently the co-Editor of the literary journal LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory.

Her research interests include 20th and 21st century Irish literature with a focus on women writers. With Claire Bracken, Tara has just co-edited a double special issue on Irish women’s writing entitled “A Continuum of Irish Women’s Writing I & II: Reflections on the Post-Celtic Tiger Era.” Her scholarship has been published in the journal Women’s Studies as well as New Hibernia Review and The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies. Tara’s talk will place Teresa Deevy in the context of other Irish Women writers and will focus on the play’s theme of marriage in early 20th century Ireland.

PLEASE CHECK: minttheater.org/enrichMINT for an updated listing of all events.

Buy your books today! $15.95 each OR $30 for the full set!

Want more plays to read by past Mint playwrights?

Visit minttheater.org/publications and order your books today!

Reserve your tickets today!

FPC Hotline: (212) 315-0231

“The romance between the Mint Theater Company and the neglected Irish playwright Teresa Deevy is still going strong.”

The New York Times, 2017

Now playing and coming Soon!

THE SUITCASE UNDER THE BED An Evening of Four Short Plays

by Teresa Deevy July 21 through Sept. 30 Tue - Sat 7:30pm Sat & Sun 2:00pm Wed matinees: 9/6, 9/20 &9/27

HINDLE WAKES

by Stanley Houghton Directed by Gus Kaikkonen December 26 - February 25 Reserve your FPC Tickets now!

FPC Hotline: (212) 315-0231

330 West 42nd Street, Suite # 1210 New York, NY 10036

Wednesday matinees 9/06, 9/20 & 9/27 No performance 9/05 & 9/24

www.minttheater.org (212) 315-0231

directed by Jonathan Bank

Tuesday through Saturday 7:30PM Saturday & Sunday 2:00PM

FIRST PRIORITY CLUB NEWS

Happy summer!

by Teresa Deevy

Now through September 30th

from your friends at Mint Theater

THE SUITCASE UNDER THE BED