New York, NY Permit No. 7528
SPECIAL DISCOUNT OFFER!
PAID
At the Mint Theater, 311 West 43rd St, 3rd floor
NON - PROFIT U . S . POSTAGE
AUG. 3 THROUGH SEPT. 25
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR JONATHAN BANK GENERAL MANAGER SHERRI KOTIMSKY
“Teresa Deevy may be a genius.” St. John Ervine, The Observer
CHEAP TIX You don’t have to be a cheapskate to appreciate a bargain, especially these days. The Mint continues its popular CheapTix program, offering a LIMITED NUMBER of HALF-PRICE TICKETS ($27.50) for EVERY PERFORMANCE. FAQ: How many seats are available? About 10 per night, some times less—and once they’re gone, they’re gone. (What are you waiting for?) Do I get to choose where I sit? No. We assign your seats the night of the performance. (Our theater only has seven rows and 100-seats. How bad can they be?) Will I get to sit with my friends? Absolutely. We won’t ever split your party. (Unless you make a special request!)
PERFORMANCES
box office: 12-6pm Monday thru Saturday by phone: (212) 315-0231 by fax: (212) 977-5211 by mail or in person: 311 W. 43rd St, Ste 307 New York, NY 10036 online: www.minttheater.org/boxoffice no service charges for first priority club members!
Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday at 7pm Friday & Saturday at 8pm Saturday & Sunday at 2pm
The Mint Theater is proud to be part of 1st Irish 2011, New York’s annual Festival of Irish theatre. The Festival runs from September 5th to October 2nd at venues across New York. For a full list of events visit www.1stIrish.org
A Special EnrichMint Event with Professor Christopher Morash from the National University of Ireland IN THE CELLAR OF MY FRIEND: A one-act play by Teresa Deevy A World Premiere Reading, Monday, August 22nd 8:00 pm Join Professor Morash and Mint Artistic Director Jonathan Bank for dinner at Elsewhere (on the corner of 43rd and 9th). Enjoy a delicious gourmet meal while Chris and Jonathan talk about this remarkable short play which has never been published or produced. Then hear the play read at the Mint, followed by a Q & A with Chris and the cast; then we can all mingle over cookies and coffee.
“The Mint does for forgotten drama what the Encores! series does for musicals, on far more modest means.” The New York Times
Save $15 per ticket August 3 — August 14 Pay Only $40 (code DV40) Save $10 per ticket August 16 — September 4 Pay Only $45 (code DV45) (Regular Price $55)
BY
TERESA DEEVY DIRECTED BY ROSIE BENTON PAUL CARLIN ROBERTSON CARRICART BAIRBRE DOWLING CON HORGAN ELI JAMES AIDAN REDMOND WRENN SCHMIDT FIANA TOIBIN
www.minttheater.org
311 W. 43rd St. 3rd Floor New York, NY 10036
(212) 315-0231
VICKI R. DAVIS COSTUMES ANDREA VARGA LIGHTS JEFF NELLIS SOUND JANE SHAW PROPS JOSHUA YOCUM DRAMATURG HEATHER J. VIOLANTI DIALECTS AND ADDITIONAL DRAMATURGY AMY STOLLER PRODUCTION STAGE MANAGER LISA MCGINN ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGERS ANDREA JO MARTIN, LAUREN MCARTHUR ASSISTANT TO THE DIRECTOR NATALIA SCHWIEN ILLUSTRATION STEFANO IMBERT GRAPHICS HEY JUDE DESIGN, INC PRESS DAVID GERSTEN & ASSOCIATES CASTING STUART HOWARD, AMY SCHECTER & PAUL HARDT SETS
DINNER: 6:00 PM | READING: 8:00 PM | RECEPTION: 9:00PM $125 PER PERSON. READING AND RECEPTION ONLY: $35
JONATHAN BANK
“Temporal Powers is a great play” John Jordan, Irish University Review
Desperate and destitute, Michael and Min Powers take refuge for the night in a crumbling ruin. Hidden in the walls is the answer to their prayers— money for a fresh start—if only they can agree to use it. What follows is a fierce moral struggle that no one can win. TEMPORAL POWERS tells the story of a great love straining under the weight of conflicting passions. Teresa Deevy’s explosive drama won first-prize in the new play competition held in 1932 by the Abbey Theatre, the world famous National Theatre of Ireland. The judges called the play “strikingly original and of fine literary quality.” It was produced to great acclaim that year: “Amongst the best that the Abbey Theatre has ever staged.” The Guardian “One of the most thoughtful works seen for sometime at the Abbey.” The Irish Times “In TEMPORAL POWERS Miss Teresa Deevy has written an original and thought-provoking play. Here at last is a ‘peasant play with a difference.’ Her characters are drawn from Irish life, they speak in a rich and natural idiom, the incidents might have happened in any Irish Village; yet throughout the performance we are haunted by the feeling of some unfamiliar quality in the atmosphere. Miss Deevy knows her people, that is obvious, but the angle from which she regards them is unusual. It is not distortion, but rather that sublime quality in the artist, originality.” The Irish Independent The critics were unanimous in their enthusiastic praise and confidently expected that TEMPORAL POWERS would be seen regularly in the years to come. “There seems little doubt
that TEMPORAL POWERS will figure often in the Abbey Repertory,” predicted The Stage. Instead, TEMPORAL POWERS was revived once in 1937, and then almost vanished forever. It was rescued from the ash heap 50 years later when the text was finally published by the Irish Literary Journal (circulation 500). And now, thanks to the Mint Theater Company, audiences can finally see Teresa Deevy’s remarkable drama: for eight weeks only from August 3rd through September 25th.
“One of Ireland’s best and most neglected dramatists”
Teresa Deevy was born in 1894, the youngest of thirteen children. Intent on a teaching career, Teresa enrolled in the University College, Dublin in 1913. After about a year she began to feel ill; her ears rang and she suffered frequent bouts of vertigo. She was diagnosed with Meniere’s disease, an incurable condition caused by fluid imbalance in the inner ear. Within a few years, Deevy had completely lost her hearing. Teresa went to London to learn lip reading and there she discovered theatre. She studied the plays in advance and sat in the front row night after night, entranced by what she saw. Teresa had found her calling. Oblivious to all obstacles, she decided to become a playwright. Fifteen years later at the age of 36, after numerous rejections, the Abbey Theater produced Deevy’s play Reapers. While the play was not a success, one of Ireland’s leading
gleam, like rich ore, with glints of subtext’s precious metal. Hearing-impaired or not, she listened acutely.” The Village Voice
Then the tide turned. Deevy’s next play, Wife To James Whelan was rejected by the Abbey’s new management, breaking Teresa’s heart and ending her career as an Abbey playwright. Undaunted, Deevy turned her attention to writing for the radio where she enjoyed some success, but by the time of her death, in 1963, she had been virtually forgotten. Not anymore…
Praise for Mint Theater’s 2010 production of
The Irish Times
“Deevy’s dialogue, e, colloquially simple and straightforward, seems artless at first. But on closer inspection, n it turns out to
critics predicted: “The new dramatist from whom most may be expected in the future is Miss T. Deevy.” Deevy went on to have five more plays produced at the Abbey over the next six years. In 1936 her play Katie Roche was hailed a masterpiece and selected for publication in an anthology of Famous Plays of the year. A London production followed in ‘38, Macmillan published three of her plays in’39. Teresa Deevy had become “the most important dramatist writing for the Irish theatre since 1930.”
Wife to James Whelan: Shawn Fagan & Rosie Benton in Wife to James Whelan Photos by Carol Rosegg
“The Mint Theater is certainly making an elegant case that the Abbey Theater in Dublin missed an opportunity almost 70 years ago when it declined to produce Wife to James Whelan.” The New York Times “The Mint so believes in Deevy that it’s already scheduled another of her plays for next year. After seeing Wife to James Whelan, that doesn’t sound quixotic anymore.” The New York Post “One of the best things I’ve seen in a very long time.” Irish Examiner “Overflowing with charm and humanity” nytheatre.com “…Intricate and emotionally affecting. If this piece is any indication, then Deevy…deserves the reissue she is getting from the Mint.” Time Out New York
ENRICHMINT EVENTS
EnrichMINT Events are supported in part by a grant from The New York Council for the Humanities and the Michael Tuch Foundation. All events take place immediately after the performance and usually last about fifty minutes. They are free and open to the public. Speakers and dates subject to change without notice.
Sunday, August 7th, after the matinee Dr. John P. Harrington, Fordham University From Prizewinner to Outcast: Teresa Deevy and the Abbey Theater Harrington is Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Fordham University; he has written extensively on Irish literature and culture, including The Irish Beckett (1991), The Irish Play on the New York Stage (1997), and The Life of the Neighborhood Playhouse on Grand Street (2007). He edited W. W. Norton’s anthology Modern and Contemporary Irish Drama (1991; new edition 2008) and Irish Theater in America (2009).
Saturday, August 13th, after the matinee Dr. Maureen Murphy, Hofstra University A past president of the American Conference for Irish Studies and a past chair of the International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures, Murphy is one of the six senior editors of the Dictionary of Irish Biography.
Saturday, August 27th, after the matinee Rev. Thomas M. McCoog, S.J. Deevy’s play is concerned with the conflict between Temporal Power, the authority of the state, and Spiritual Power—the authority of the church. Father McCoog will lead a discussion on these issues. He divides his time between the Jesuit Historical Institute in Rome and London where he is archivist of the British Province of the Society of Jesus; he was the Loyola Chair at Fordham University in 2009.
Saturday, September 3rd, after the matinee Jacqui Deevy Jacqui’s grandfather was Teresa’s brother; Jacqui grew up in “Landscape”, the Deevy family home, where Teresa was born and raised. Please join us for this special occasion when Jacqui and her family will see Temporal Powers for the first time ever. After the performance Jacqui will talk about Teresa and share her impressions of the play.
Sunday, September 18th, after the matinee Dr Michael Cadden, Princeton University Cadden is currently Director of the Program in Theater and Dance at Princeton University, where he has been teaching for 25 years, including classes in Irish Drama. In 1993, Michael was awarded the University’s President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching. He began his career at the Yale School of Drama.
Dr. Christopher Morash, National University of Ireland, Maynooth Professor Christopher Morash returns to the Mint for his third consecutive year, having previously conducted talks after performances of Is Life Worth Living? in 2009 and Wife to James Whelan in 2010. Chris is Professor and Head of English at National University of Ireland, Maynooth. Chris’s publications include A History of Irish Theatre 1601-2000 (Cambridge, 2002), which won the Theatre Book Prize from the Society for Theatre Research, and Writing the Irish Famine (Oxford, 1996), as well as a number of articles and lectures dealing with various aspects of Irish culture.
Saturday, August 20th, after the matinee Ireland in Ruins: The Worlds of Teresa Deevy’s Temporal Powers Teresa Deevy’s 1932 play, Temporal Powers is set in “an old ruin.” This may seem like an odd setting for a play; and yet, ruins have figured prominently in images of Ireland going back to the eighteenth century. This talk will look at what it means to set a play amidst ruins, using the set as a way of situating Deevy in a theatrical tradition that looks back to Boucicault on one hand, and ahead to Beckett on the other. Ultimately, we will consider whether this play – situated in the rubble of one economic collapse – has anything to say to Ireland in its present condition.
Sunday, August 21st, after the matinee “A Peasant Play With a Difference”: Teresa Deevy’s Temporal Powers and the Abbey Theatre When Teresa Deevy’s Temporal Powers was first performed at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre in December of 1932, the Irish Independent hailed it as “a peasant play with a difference.” It is not surprising that an Irish reviewer in 1932 would have seen the play in those terms, for the international reputation of the Abbey at that point rested largely on plays dealing with Irish peasants. The major playwrights of the early years of the Abbey – W.B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, and J.M. Synge – all wrote plays featuring Irish peasant characters, and by the late 1920s the genre of the Irish peasant comedy was well established. This talk will look briefly at this tradition, before moving on to look at the ways in which Temporal Powers both is, and is not, an Irish peasant play – and what that might mean for us watching the play today.