HINDLE WAKES BY STANLEY HOUGHTON DIRECTED BY GUS KAIKKONEN
“Few other plays explore so unflinchingly the profound, and profoundly English, connection between sex, money, and class… Still packs a powerful punch.” The Sunday Times (1998)
Hindle Wakes
by Stanley Houghton Directed by Gus Kaikkonen The Clurman Theatre at Theatre Row (410 W. 42nd Street) December 22, 2017 through February 17, 2018 Tue - Sat 7:30PM Sat & Sun 2:00PM Wed 2:00PM: 1/17 & 2/14
Tickets on sale now to First Priority Club Members. Call the FPC Hotline at: 212.315.0231 Further Reading:
The Younger Generation By Stanley Houghton
Monday, February 5, 2018 7:00PM at the Clurman Theatre Call the FPC Hotline at: 212.315.0231
It’s “wakes week” in Hindle; the mill is closed and the workers are idle. Fanny Hawthorn is relaxing at the seashore with a girlfriend when she runs into Alan Jeffcote, the mill owner’s son. Alan takes Fanny to an hotel in Wales for a few days of fun, but the fun stops when their parents find out. Of course, Alan should marry Fanny, the fathers agree—no matter that Alan is engaged already. Must Alan do the right thing and make an honest woman of Fanny, or must he do the right thing and stand by his fiancé? Hindle Wakes mixes questions of ethics, class, custom and morals into an effervescent fizz of comic realism. “It is not extravagant to say, that Hindle Wakes is one of the best plays of modern times.” Theatre Magazine (1922) Hindle Wakes is a sly morality tale, sliced out of real life, but “it is life mixed with something, or fermented into something, more exhilarating than the real thing,” wrote the Guardian’s famed critic C.E. Montague, in reviewing a 1924 revival of the play. “Seen last night after an interval of some ten years, the play struck us as an even better comedy than we had felt it to be in its youth…Houghton was surely born with the right touch for a dramatist, and it will be surprising if Hindle Wakes does not keep a permanent place on the stage.” Montague’s prediction has proven true in England, however, Hindle Wakes has not been seen in New York for 95 years.
Welcome Back, Gus! We are pleased to welcome Gus Kaikkonen back to the Mint, as the director of Hindle Wakes. Gus began his association with the Mint as an actor in 1998 in our production of Edith Wharton's dramatization of her novel, The House of Mirth. In 1999, he directed The Voysey Inheritance by Harvey Granville Barker, the production that proved to be a true "game-changer" for the Mint. Voysey was the show that proved that there might just be support for the idea of producing old plays that no one had ever heard of. Here's a list of some of the productions Gus has directed for us: The Voysey Inheritance (1999) The Charity that Began at Home (2002) The Madras House (2007) Dr. Knock or the Triumph of Medicine (2010) A Picture of Autumn (2013) Donogoo (2014)
Gus has also stepped into a few of our productions as an actor. Here’s a picture of Gus rehearsing the role of Willie Gregson in A Day by the Sea with George Morfogen, whom Gus has directed at the Mint five times. Gus went on with four hours notice, and played the last ten performances.