The Power of Darkness

SURROUND EVENTS

COMING TO THE MINT IN FEBRUARY

Discussions last approximately 50 minutes and are open to the public free of charge.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 8

THE FIFTH COLUMN

following the matinee

Jefferson Gattrall A discussion focused on the initial reaction to the play and the controversy surrounding its most shocking scene, which had to be altered before the play could finally be performed in Russia.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 9

BY ERNEST HEMINGWAY

following the matinee

Beginning February 26th 2008, Mint will present the long-delayed Premiere production of THE FIFTH COLUMN by Ernest Hemingway—not the dramatization of a novel or story—but a drama written for the stage by one of America’s most celebrated and important authors.

Director Martin Platt and members of the cast Adapter/Director Martin Platt will discuss his work on the play

Jo n a t h a n B a n k ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

and will take your questions.

Sherri Kotimsky

Hemingway wrote THE FIFTH COLUMN in 1937 when he was in Madrid working as a correspondent during the Spanish Civil War. “While I was writing the play the Hotel Florida, where we lived and worked, was struck by more than thirty high explosive shells,” Hemingway recounted in his introduction to the play when it was published the following year. “If it is a good play, perhaps those thirty shells helped write it.”

The play revolves around the personal and political passions of Philip Rawlings, a counter-espionage agent living in the Hotel Florida and working for the Loyalist cause.

GENERAL MANAGER

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 15

following the matinee

Professor Hilde Hoogenboom, SUNY Albany Dr. Hoogeboom’s discussion will focus on Tolstoy in the context of 19th century Russian intellectual history.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 16

following the matinee

“It was written to be produced,” he continued, “But one producer died after he had signed a contract to put it on and had gone to California to cast it. Another producer signed another contract and had trouble raising money. Reading it over I thought it read well, no matter how it might play and so decided to put it in with this book of stories [‘The First Forty-Nine Stories’ 1938]. “Later some one may want to produce it.”

Professor Maude Meisel, Pace University A discussion of THE POWER OF DARKNESS with Maude Meisel from Pace University.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 2O

The Theatre Guild did mount a production in 1940, but the produced play was so significantly altered that it was billed as “Adapted by Benjamin Glazer from the published play by Ernest Hemingway.”

following the performance

Professor Daniel Gerould, CUNY Graduate Center A discussion of 19th century Russian theater and THE POWER OF DARKNESS with distinguished professor Daniel Gerould from the CUNY Graduate Center.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 23

Mint Theater Company will present, for the first-time ever, THE FIFTH COLUMN as it was originally written—a vibrant, original and compelling drama by one of America’s greatest writers.

following the matinee

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR JONATHAN BANK

For more information, or to order tickets, visit our website:

Jonathan Bank and members of the cast will take your questions.

www.minttheater.org Tickets available online ONLY (thru October 1st) Performances begin February 26th

Post-show discussion performances sell out first.

Call 212-315-0231 for more information or to book your seats.

$25 for under 25!

$45 FOR PERFORMANCES SEPT. 6 – 23 $55 FOR PERFORMANCES SEPT. 26 – OCT. 28 Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday at 7pm Friday-Saturday at 8pm & Saturday-Sunday at 2pm

Martin Platt WITH:

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• By Mail or In-Person: Mint Theater Company (No Service Charges) 311 West 43rd Street, Ste. #307 New York, NY 10036 • By Phone: (212) 315-0231 ($2.50 per ticket service charge will apply)

Mark Alhadeff, Lisa Altomare, Jennifer Bissell, Steve Brady, Randy Danson, Scott Freeman, Anne Letscher, Peter Levine, Matthew A.J. Gregory, Angela Reed, Jeff Steitzer, Alok Tewari, Goldie Zwiebel

• On-line: www.minttheater.org (No Service Charges)

BOX OFFICE HOURS

Bill Clarke COSTUMES Holly Poe Durbin LIGHTS Jeff Nellis MUSIC Ellen Mandel Scott Brodsky STAGE MANAGER Allison Deutsch ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER Lyndsey Goode PRESS REPRESENTATIVE David Gersten & Associates GRAPHICS Jude Dvorak

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him in a web of murder, adultery and infanticide leading ultimately to despair and a cry for redemption. “It is a great play because it confronts as squarely as MACBETH the darkness of humanity,” writes The Guardian.

“THE POWER OF DARKNESS rends the air with greatness.”

The Spectator, 1984

“A GREAT PLAY” (The Guardian, Daily Telegraph)

A neglected masterpiece from one of the world’s greatest writers, telling an unforgettable story of sin and redemption. Set knee-deep in the mud and muck of a Russian peasant village in the 1880’s, THE POWER OF DARKNESS “pins down ordinary, everyday lives and illuminates them.”

“The Mint Theater makes other companies look ridiculous by lovingly producing forgotten plays that are much better than many that are repeatedly revived.”

Jason Zinoman, The New York Times

MINT THEATER COMPANY: LOST PLAYS FOUND HERE The award-winning Mint has brought you lost treasures such as: Return of the Prodigal, The Madras House, Susan and God and The Daughter-in-Law.

Beginning September 6th Mint Theater Company will present Leo Tolstoy’s dramatic landmark, THE POWER OF DARKNESS—last seen in New York nearly 50 years ago. Legendary New York Times critic Brooks Atkinson called the play “Unforgettable” in 1959, “a devastating chronicle of corruption and penitence on a peasant farm in the 1880’s.”

Written in 1886, DARKNESS was banned in Russia until 1895—after Tolstoy satisfied the censor and agreed to provide an alternative for the play’s most powerful and horrific scene. The play is virtually unknown in this country; its first New York production was in Yiddish (in 1904). It was another 16 years before the fledgling Theater Guild premiered the play in English.

Tolstoy’s tragedy is a heartrending and cautionary tale about the consequences of pursuing personal gain while disregarding morality and the dictates of one’s own conscience. Time has not diminished the power of this masterful drama which is likely to challenge the nerves of even the most hardened of theatergoers.

THE POWER OF DARKNESS was presented at the Orange Tree Theater in London twice, in 1984 and again in 1997 where it was acclaimed as “enthralling and vivid,”1 “both harrowing and absolutely riveting.”2 “Its cumulative theatrical power is tremendous.”3 The Financial Times writes that “Tolstoy’s play boasts at least two scenes as spine-tinglingly tense as any European drama in the past century.”

“But what is even more remarkable is the way Tolstoy shows how human behavior is governed by economic necessity. Tolstoy dwells on the particular; but, like all great dramatists, draws from it universal precepts. In its capacity to handle great themes of good and evil, the power of money and triumph of the spirit, it dwarfs any other play currently to be seen in London.” (1984)

“Tolstoy’s passionate feeling sweeps the story and the characterizations along triumphantly.”

Brooks Atkinson The New York Times, 1959

Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) is widely regarded as one the world’s greatest authors; his novels Anna Karenina and War and Peace are indisputable classics—they are read, studied and admired across the globe and have been for nearly 150 years. As a playwright, however, Tolstoy has been grossly neglected.

THE POWER OF DARKNESS is widely considered to be Tolstoy’s finest play, but it is not his only one. Other dramatic works include REDEMPTION, THE FRUITS OF ENLIGHTENMENT, and THE LIVING CORPSE, plus numerous shorter works and sketches.

The “excellent”4 Mint Theater Company, “whose smartly mounted revivals of neglected but worthy plays have put it on the map”5 has a celebrated reputation for bringing lost plays to vivid life in its intimate theater on West 43rd St.

Set amidst the squalor, superstition and ignorance of a peasant village in Russia, the play’s subtitle: “If the claw is caught, the bird is lost” evocatively describes the downward spiral of the play’s young protagonist whose philandering ensnares

Mint was awarded the prestigious $100,000 Tony Randall Theatrical Fund grant for this production by a committee of esteemed theater professionals, the first company to receive this highly coveted award in a competitive process.

Don’t miss out on this rare opportunity to experience the work of one of the world’s greatest writers—order your tickets today!

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LEO TOLSTOY (1828-1910) is one of the most important novelists in Western literature. The breadth of his vision and the range of his accomplishments are immense.

An enormously important figure in Russian literature and culture, Tolstoy is famous not only for his novels, short stories, and plays but also for his moral authority. While he was alive he attracted many disciples to the moral doctrines of "Tolstoyism" by the force of his personality and by his voluminous nonfictional writing on topics as wide-ranging as religion, civil disobedience, and vegetarianism. By the turn of the century, he had achieved worldwide recognition and prestige. The influence of his thought was felt not only by virtually all of Russia's leading cultural figures, but also beyond Russia's borders . However; the religious and moral movement founded by him did not remain strong after his death in 1910. Rather, his literary masterpieces have survived, retaining their freshness and vitality for new generations of readers. Tolstoy the artist has eclipsed Tolstoy the moralist--a fact that would have seemed incredible at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Tolstoy's novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina continue to be held in high esteem by critics as among the best examples of the novel as a genre.

Often overshadowed by his major novels and masterpieces of short fiction are Tolstoy's brilliant plays, such as the tragedy The Power of Darkness and the satirical comedy The Fruits of Enlightenment. Tolstoy was a prolific writer; his complete works in Russian consist of forty-five volumes of fiction and another forty-five volumes of essays, correspondence, and diaries. Yet the huge number of works he produced is only one measure of the cultural force he represented.

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Time Out, 1984 What’s On, 1997 3 Daily Telegraph, 1997

The New York Observer, 2007 The Wall Street Journal, 2007

Edward Wasiolek, University of Chicago.

Excerpted from Gale’s Dictionary of Literary Biography.

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