the
widowing of mrs. holroyd by D.H. Lawrence
the widowing of mrs. holroyd
directed by Stuart Howard
“As moving as anything I have seen in a theatre.”
-Derek Malcom, The Guardian, 1966
tickets $45! must order before march 6th* call (212) 315-0231 or visit www.minttheater.org *use code mar45
regular price $55.
performances at mint theater, 311 west 43rd st, 3rd floor.
is the story of a marriage in trouble. It is the story of a husband trying to escape the scorn and bitterness of a woman who resents the hold he has on her. It is the story of a wife trying desperately to make a safe home for her young children amidst the coarseness of a sootblackened coal mining village—safe from her drunken husband, from her meddling mother-in-law—and from the passion of the man who wants to take her away. “This is a moving play about the tension between men and women: the essential misunderstandings and necessary needs,” Clive Barnes wrote in The New York Times in 1973, when the play was presented at the Long Wharf in CT. “It contrasts the power of sexuality with the power of peace. And neither wins…”
mrs. holroyd
was written in 1910 when Lawrence was twenty-five and experiencing his first success as a published poet while teaching school in a London suburb. It was his second play and it expands upon a tale that Lawrence first told in his short story The Odour of Chrysanthemums which was unpublished when he composed the play. No producer was willing to take a chance on this grimly naturalistic drama whose ending is foretold in its title. However, in 1914 the play was selected for publication in the ‘Modern Drama Series’ dedicated to the best of contemporary playwrighting. The New York Times review of the book described its author as “practically unknown to the American public. Mr. Lawrence…has suddenly sprung before playgoing London as the author of a most terrific bit of
realism….It is terrifying to read, how it could be presented seems almost inconceivable…its truth is too overwhelming.” “I know nothing on the modern stage quite comparable…” wrote The Nation (London) while urging that the play be staged.
mrs. holroyd
received its World Premiere two years later in Los Angeles. Under the headline
“A tremendous, yet simple, dramatic experience.” - Clive Barnes, NY Times “nth power realism,” the L.A. Times review called the play “Poignant, gripping and vivid in its startling realism.” Its brief run was a great success—yet it was to be another fifty years before Lawrence received any recognition for his remarkable gifts as a dramatist. In 1965 the Complete Plays of D.H. Lawrence was published containing all eight of his full-length dramas and in 1968 three of those plays (A Collier’s Friday Night, The Daughterin-Law & The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd) were produced at the Royal Court Theatre in London under the direction of Peter Gill. This Lawrence ‘tryptych’ began to shine a light down the dark mine shaft where Lawrence’s powerful dramas had lain neglected. The power and simplicity of Lawrence’s creation was immediately evident: “a truth and purity which makes the theatre’s normal currency of charm, humour and spectacle seem vulgar,” declared Ronald Bryden of The Observer. “Lawrence has given the English
Theatre as fine a work as it has produced in this century. Its fineness makes a critic long for means of compelling you to see it without resort to his inevitable vocabulary of praise or persuasion…It needs a language clean of blandishment and huckstering to convey the steelsharp purity of Lawrence’s writing here…Already he is a master of concentration, of burning intensity, distilling from a naturalism homely as potatoes a fiery, white and icecold emotion which shocks like a gulp of liquid energy.” Five years ago Mint Theater Company produced Lawrence’s play the daughter-in-law to critical raves and sold-out houses over an extended run. Now the Mint offers the New York Premiere of the widowing of mrs. holroyd. Don’t miss out—make your plans to see this powerhouse of a play today.
D.H. Lawrence was born in 1885 in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire. He is best known as the author of Sons and Lovers, The Rainbow, Women in Love and the notorious Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928), which was considered to be obscene and was widely banned; Chatterley was not officially legal in England until 1960. Lawrence is the author of eight full-length plays, none of which he ever saw onstage in his lifetime (including The Daughter-In-Law, produced by the Mint in 2003). Though it seems that he never shook off the black mark of rabid literary censorship, his works remain to this day celebrated studies of human passion and desperation. At the time of his death, much of the public regarded him as a pornographer rather than a literary genius; yet in Lawrence’s obituary notice, E.M. Forster cited him as “the greatest imaginative novelist of our generation.”
order now and use code mar45
must order before march 6th
tickets $45! - The Guardian
“Extraordinarily eloquent” directed by stuart howard
by d.h. lawrence
of mrs. holroyd
widowing the
New York, NY Permit No. 7528 311 W 43rd St, suite 307 New York, NY 10036 www.minttheater.org
paid non-profit u.s. postage
artistic director Jonathan Bank general manager Sherri Kotimsky
enrichMINT events Saturday February 21st, after the matinee:
Connecting the Dots in the work of D.H. Lawrence
Elizabeth Fox is the current President of the D.H. Lawrence Society of North America, and has delivered and published papers using psychoanalytic theory to explore Lawrence’s works. Elizabeth teaches at MIT and The New England Conservatory of Music. Sunday February 22nd, after the matinee:
Love, Hate, & Conflicted Grief in Mrs. Holroyd
Jeffrey Berman is Distinguished Teaching Professor of English at the University at Albany and the author of ten books, including Dying to Teach: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Learning. Saturday February 28th, after the matinee:
february 4th - march 29th
tuesday-thursday at 7pm friday & saturday at 8pm saturday & sunday at 2pm
Literary & Autobiographical Sources
of D. H. Lawrence’s Plays Formerly an arts journalist for Back Stage and Backstage.com for 26 years, Victor Gluck is currently a drama critic for TheaterScene. net. He has been a voting member of the Drama Desk, Outer Critic Circle, and American Theatre Critics Association since 1980. Saturday March 14th, after the matinee:
Lawrence & Dramatic Modernism
Gregory F. Tague, associate professor of English at St. Francis College in Brooklyn Heights, is the author of Character and Consciousness (2005), Ethos and Behavior (2008), and, most recently, is the editor of Origins of English Literary Modernism, 1870-1914 (2009).
further readings
with:
sets Marion Williams costumes Martha Hally lights Jeff Nellis sound Jane Shaw properties Deborah Gaouette dialects Amy Stoller stage manager Allison Deutsch asst stage manager Andrea Jo Martin illustration Stefano Imbert graphics Hunter Kaczorowski press representative David Gersten & Associates casting Amy Schecter & Paul Hardt
performances at mint theater, 311 west 43rd st, 3rd floor.
Saturday, March 21st at 11:30 am
HOW plays WORK
Martin Meisel, Brander Matthews Professor Emeritus of Dramatic Literature, Columbia University and author of How Plays Work, will draw upon his recently published book in discussing The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd. Meisel will articulate some of the most important aspects of drama as a performed art while exploring their workings in Lawrence’s play. In this 90 minute session, Meisel will examine how a play defines its world; how it creates and redirects expectation; how it organizes space and time; how it shapes action, uses words, creates meanings; and how, at its most fulfilling, it combines the experience of wonder with that of involved witnessing. This session is free and open to the public: you may have already seen the play, or plan to see it on this day or in the future--or not at all. There will also be a brief Q & A with Professor Meisel after the performance.
A series of play readings to benefit the Mint Theater featuring some of our favorite authors, actors and directors.
March 9th, 2009 at 7:30pm
April 20th, 2009 at 7:30pm
by D.H. Lawrence, directed by Martin Platt
by Dawn Powell, directed by Michael Sexton
THE MARRIED MAN
Eric Martin Brown, Allyn Burrows, Julia Coffey, Nick Cordileone, Randy Danson, Dalton Harrod, Emma Kantor, Arthur Lazalde, Amanda Roberts, Sheila Stasack, James Warke, Lance Wertz, Pilar Witherspoon
All events take place immediately after the performance and usually last about fifty minutes. Free and open to the public. Speakers and dates subject to change without notice.
BIG NIGHT
Tickets to each reading are $35. Are you interested in joining a group of Mint friends for dinner before our readings for a brief introduction to the play and some lively conversation? Call 212-315-0231 for more information.
Described by D.H. Lawrence as a comedy, The Married Man is distinctly different from many of his other plays, replacing the pit grime of the coal mines with characters that are educated, well spoken and even clever.
The first play by Dawn Powell, Big Night is a pungent and spiky comedy about some 1920’s “Mad Men” including a down-on-hisluck advertising executive trying to land a big client over drinks at his home.
(212) 315-0231
www.minttheater.org
the widowing of mrs. holroyd how to purchase tickets: february 4th - march 29th.
tickets $45!
must order before march 6th use code mar45 regular price $55.
25 under 25: anyone under 25 can now order $25 tickets in
advance -- over the phone, online or in person! (limit one ticket per id, needed for ticket pickup)
box office: 12-6pm Monday thru Friday by mail or in person: 311 West 43rd Street, #307, New York NY 10036 by phone: (212) 315-0231 ($2.50 service charge applies) by fax: (212) 977-5211 online: minttheater.org
All tickets are held at the Box Office. No Late Seating! All sales are final. No refunds.