KATIE ROCHE by teresa deevy
directed by jonathan bank
January 26th- March 24th
“A Masterpiece”
“Masterpiece is a word to be used sparingly, but I have no hesitation in applying it to Miss Deevy’s KATIE ROCHE. Imagine a play in which the really eloquent and revealing things are the sentences the players do not say; a play in which words become almost unimportant and situation everything; a play of fantastic irony, of vital convincing characters, of superb craftsmanship. That is KATIE ROCHE.” The Irish Independent, 1936 Katie is a servant girl of uncertain parentage. She is wild with ambition and dreams of finding something great to do. Following the blaze of deeply felt but contradictory feelings, Katie longs to find her way. Teresa Deevy’s brilliantly original drama takes us on Katie’s journey as she struggles to find herself and her destiny.
Originally produced by Ireland’s Abbey Theatre in 1936, KATIE ROCHE was included in the Gollancz Anthology of “Famous Plays of 1936” (“even though it cannot yet be called famous”) along with Clifford Odets’ Awake and Sing. The Abbey chose KATIE ROCHE to kick off their U.S. tour in 1937 and in 1938 it was produced in London.
“An exquisite work of art” The Christian Science Monitor, 1949
don Times acknowledged: “It is almost impossible to give an idea of the quality of this really fine play.” The Independent critic had no hesitation in calling the play a “masterpiece,” neither did he hesitate to “admit frankly that I do not appreciate it fully at the moment. It is a play to be read, to be studied, to be seen again and again.” KATIE ROCHE was revived by the Abbey in 1949, 1975 and 1994—each time to critical acclaim:
“With an economy that is almost skeletonlike, Miss Deevy establishes her every character with some half-dozen sentences often left unfinished. The general effect is that of an exquisite work of art.” The Christian Science Monitor, 1949 “It is full of wisdom and compassionate warmth…Few treatments of volatile youth matched with staid middle-aged in marriage are as engaging and as moving as this…a most welcome draught of pure, fresh air in the theatre.” Irish Independent, 1975 “A depth, a richness and an originality of thought and feeling which make for an absorbing, surprising and ultimately very moving and satisfying evening of drama. On the evidence presented, Miss Deevy would seem one of the most undeservedly neglected and significant Irish playwrights of this century.”
This winter, Teresa Deevy’s groundbreaking drama finally returns to New Those who praised the play most enthu- York with performances running from siastically acknowledged the difficulty January 26- March 24. of describing it. The critic for The Lon-
“Of all the lost names unearthed by the Mint Theater Company, surely the most significant has been the rediscovery of the Irish playwright Teresa Deevy.” Lighting and Sound America
Teresa Deevy was born in 1984 as the youngest of thirteen children in Waterford, Ireland. Though she intended to teach, Teresa contracted Meniere’s disease while at University College Dublin and lost her hearing. She went to London to study lip-reading and the theater provided her an opportunity to practice—there she discovered her calling. Despite obvious obstacles and years of rejection, Teresa eventually became a celebrated playwright. She had six plays produced at Ireland’s National Theater, the Abbey between the years 1930 and 1936. It was KATIE ROCHE that solidified her place as Ireland’s most important female dramatist since Augusta Gregory. A servant girl whose mercurial ambitions reach for the heavens, Deevy’s remarkable heroine introduced a study of feminine power with unprecedented subtlety and depth. Of the play’s protagonist, The Irish Times claimed, “Katie Roche herself is most skillfully drawn—an almost impossibly childlike mind combined with a wild temperament” Mint Theater Company has singlehandedly put Teresa Deevy back onto the literary map with our acclaimed productions of WIFE TO JAMES WHELAN in 2010 and TEMPORAL POWERS in 2011. We proudly present KATIE ROCHE as the final production of our ambitious three-year project dedicated to the brilliant Teresa Deevy.
Meet the cast of KATIE ROCHE on the last page