Truth About Bladys and Mr. Pim Passes By

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APRIL 14 OPENING 2:00 TRUTH 7:00 PIM APRIL 21 2:00 TRUTH 7:00 PIM

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MAY 1 2:00 PIM 8:00 TRUTH

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APRIL 20 7:00 TRUTH

2:00 TRUTH 8:00 PIM

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“As brisk and refreshing as a summer breeze”

1 Brilliant cast in rotating repertory A.A. MILNE at the MINT

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“A wise, finely wrought comedy”

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MR. PIM PASSES BY

ONE PLAY

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6

THE TRUTH ABOUT BLAYDS

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WHO

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ALAN ALEXANDER MILNE & HIS FOUR TRIFLES Alan Alexander Milne (1882-1956) was born in London, the son of a schoolmaster. He graduated with an honors degree in mathematics from Trinity College in 1903. He published his first verses in Punch in 1904 at the age of 22. Before long he was a regular contributor to that famous English humor magazine and in 1906 he became the assistant editor, a position he held until 1918.

In 1913, Milne married Dorothy de Selincourt, the granddaughter of his editor at Punch. Like the heroines in Milne’s sketches and dramas, his wife was a pert and witty conversationalist. Milne said, “She had the most perfect sense of humour in the world, she laughed readily at my jokes”.

During World War I Milne served as a signals officer. He was posted to France briefly in 1916 and wrote propaganda for the Intelligence service. During his training period, he wrote his first play, Wurzel-Flummery, which was produced in London in 1917.

With the encouragement of his friend James Barrie, Milne then applied himself to playwriting; what he would call “the most exciting form of writing….”

Milne wrote numerous essays, novels, and even a successful detective story in 1922. The Red House Mystery helped to establish the conventions of British detective fiction between World War I and World War II. All of the Winnie-the-Pooh verses were written between 1924 and 1928 and published in four slim volumes. After that, to Milne’s great dismay, he would never again achieve any lasting success as either playwright or novelist. He once wrote of the lovable menagerie that gave him his lasting fame, “I wanted to escape from them as I once wanted to escape from Punch as I have always wanted to escape. In vain...”

A.A. Milne knew that his contributions as a novelist, playwright, mystery writer, and an essayist would forever be lost under the shadow of what he referred to as his “four trifles”. In the New York Herald Tribune Book Review, in one of his last verses he said this: If a writer, why not write On whatever comes in sight?

So—the Children’s Books: a short Intermezzo of a sort: When I wrote them, little thinking All my years of pen-and-inking Would be almost lost among Those four trifles for the young.

A family has lived for two generations in the shadow of their patriarch, O l i v e r Blayds, the venerated poet and world famous celebrity.

On the evening o f h i s ninetieth birthday he makes a shocking confession to his youngest daughter that sends the family into a shattering spiral of recriminations, scattering the pieces of their once charmed lives and leaving them to decide whether or not to tell the truth about Blayds.

“An exceedingly clever comedy, brilliant in characterization, interesting in its complications—in short, a play that everyone must see, and which at once places its author conspicuously among the most successful dramatists now writing for the English-speaking stage.”

Theater Magazine, 1922

Blayds introduced the public to Milne in a more serious mood: “more of irony and less of Milne’s buoyant vein of nonsense,” wrote Alexander Woolcott in The New York Times, calling it “a wise, finely wrought comedy…written with a keen humor and a sure dramatic instinct.”

“Milne has laid aside the satire and delicate wit that have been his forte and falls to asking social questions and pumping hidden shames with a vengeance.”

Life , Letters and the Arts

“How hopeful we are.” observes Blayds’ daughter, “How unbreakable. If I were God, I should be very proud of Man.” “It is this voice that speaks through all the Milne comedies,” writes the Telegram, “—a warm sympathetic voice that is in touch with human nature, its frailty, its strength, its defeats and its victories.” Milne explores the conflict between our idealism and our pragmatism with gentle incisiveness. It is the genius of Milne’s gift to make this conflict both compelling and comedic.

Katharine Hepburn, dressed as a man, second from right, in “The Truth about Blayds” at Bryn Mawr College in 1928.

“In Alan Alexander Milne the English-speaking stage has at last found another master dramatist.

If anyone had doubts about that, after seeing Mr. Pim and The Dover Road, The Truth About Blayds will dispel them.

This remarkable little play…is as fine a piece of dramatic writing as one could wish—or hope for. Mr. Milne shows his deft craftsmanship, his knowledge of human nature and his delightful sense of humor. It is so exquisitely ironic, such a deep and true study of the comedy of life, the individual problem of each family member is so cleverly dealt with, the humorous view point never being lost, one cannot help acclaiming Mr. Milne’s work as a The Herald, 1922 masterpiece.”

Charming Mr. Pim stops by the Marden household one fine afternoon to ask a small favor. In passing, the Mardens discover that Olivia’s first husband (the ex-convict), is not dead as they believed him to be and their presumed marital bliss is, in fact— bigamy. Husband and wife react to this distressing news in very different ways, revealing fundamental —and possibly irreconcilable differences. Mr. Pim Passes By was proclaimed as “...the most brilliant light comedy since Oscar Wilde,” when it premiered in London in 1920.

“One of the best plays in our modern drama. You can hear, if you listen, tremendous implications—a whole philosophy of life and love.” The Times Literary Supplement Old friends of the Mint will recognize dear, dotty Mr. Pim from his previous incarnation in 1997. The Village Voice, called it “A delightful comedy that has awaked in the pink like Sleeping Beauty after the Prince’s kiss.”

“Lisa Bostnar scintillates. She not only demonstrates why all the men in the play have fallen in love with her, but has the kind of charm that one associates with Myrna Loy or Audrey Hepburn. In a different theatre age playwrights would have written plays specifically for her, she is that enchanting.” Backstage, 1997 (Photo by John L. Egging, Peterborough Players)

“The Mint's motto is ‘Good stories, well told,’ and they have more than lived up to it here. I left Mr. Pim smiling from ear to ear and filled with good cheer, and I suspect that you will too. The Mint is giving us a sweet, joyful gift: go ahead and indulge yourself—it's nice to leave the theatre feeling perfectly happy.” nytheatre.com, 1997 Clive Barnes found the play “strangely enchanting. The real enchantress of the bunch,” he continues, “is Olivia (Lisa Bostnar) who manipulates her household with wit, charm and flair. The director here is blessed in discovering in Bostnar an actress capable of all the wiles and whimsy that Milne has laid upon his obviously adored Olivia.”

Bostnar will reprise her role in the new production under the direction of Artistic Director Bank, making this their third production of Pim together, the most recent being in 2002 in New Hampshire where the play was a great success for the Peterborough Players.

“Far more relevant than many contemporary ‘relationship’ plays and as brisk and refreshing as a summer breeze…No ‘hunny’ from Pooh’s creator here, but a finer elixir, sophisticated and subtle. And at the center, a theatrical rarity: two adults in a resilient and healthy marriage” The Boston Globe I wrote four ‘Children’s books,’ containing altogether, I suppose, 70,000 words—the number of words in the average-length novel. Having said good-bye to all that in 70,000 words, knowing that as far as I was concerned the mode was outmoded, I gave up writing children’s books.

(But) England expects the writer, like the cobbler, to stick to his last. If you begin painting policeman you must go on painting policeman, for then the public knows the answer—policeman. If you stop painting policeman in order to paint windmills, criticism remains so overpoweringly policeman-conscious that even a windmill is seen as something with arms out, obviously directing traffic.

A.A. Milne, Autobiography