My First Play of 2021

[+ Lucky]

Today I attended a performance of Days To Come, by Lillian Hellman, at the Mint Theater production on Theater Row. I had read about the show in last week's Wall Street Journal as Terry Teachout, the theater critic, had spoken well of it.

You might know, though, that when I say "attended" that I was in my home, watching the play on my computer. I couldn't actually be there since the play was performed in 2018.

But the Mint is streaming it for free, and who could turn that down? The show is a drama taking place in 1936 where a labor strike undoes the town, the factory, and anyone in shouting range. It's pretty well acted, but I sure wish I had seen it live in 2018, as something is lost when you don't have to silence your phone, worry about farting (I didn't!) and you can get up to pee at your leisure.

To see the play, go to the theater at minttheater.org. They will give you a link to the password you need to stream the performance. The show is about two hours long. I recommend it to those who love theater. There are few giggles, but good acting and sets.

Here is the Mint's summary of the play:

 

Lillian Hellman’s second play, Days to Come, is a family drama set against the backdrop of labor strife in a small Ohio town which threatens to tear apart both town and family. “It’s the story of innocent people on both sides who are drawn into conflict and events far beyond their comprehension,” Hellman said in an interview before Days to Come opened in 1936. “It’s the saga of a man who started something he cannot stop…”

 

 

“It’s a gripping, lucid examination of the dangerous intersection of economic, social, and personal forces.” The New Yorker

 

Andrew Rodman is running the family business and failing at it. The workers are out on strike and things are getting desperate. “Papa would have known what to do,” his sister Cora nags, “and without wasting time and money.” But it’s too late, Rodman is bringing in strikebreakers, naively failing to anticipate the disastrous impact that this will have on his family and their place in the community where they have lived for generations.

 

 

Audiences had no chance to appreciate Days to Come when it premiered on Broadway in 1936; it closed after a week. Hellman blamed herself for the play’s failure. “I wanted to say too much,” she wrote in a preface to the published play in 1942—while admitting that her director was confused and her cast inadequate. “On the opening night the actors moved as figures in the dream of a frightened child. It was my fault, I suppose, that it happened.” Nevertheless, “I stand firmly on the side of Days to Come.” In 1942, Hellman could afford to take responsibility for the play’s failure; she had enjoyed much success in the days after Days to Come (with both The Little Foxes and Watch on the Rhine.) But Hellman’s play is better than she would admit.

 

 

“Days to Come … turns out to be a gripping piece of storytelling, one whose failure and subsequent obscurity make no sense at all.” The Wall Street Journal

 

Days to Come was revived only once in New York, in 1978, by the WPA Theatre. In reviewing that production for The Nation, Harold Clurman wrote that “our knowledge of what Hellman would subsequently write reveals that Days to Come is not mainly concerned with the industrial warfare which is the ‘stuff’ of her story for the first two acts.” Hellman’s real preoccupation is “the lack of genuine values of mind or spirit” of her principle characters, the factory-owning Rodmans.

 

Here's what Terry Teachout had to say:

 

[TABLE]

[TR]

[TD]

[TABLE]

[TR]

[TD]Days to Come

 

Mint Theater, New York

Viewable online through February 21, free

To watch, go to minttheater.org

 

by TERRY TEACHOUT

One of the few welcome surprises of 2020 was the announcement by New York’s Mint Theater that it had spent the preceding seven years taping broadcast-ready three-camera archival videos of its off-Broadway productions, and that in lieu of live performances during the pandemic, it would stream these videos for free. As regular readers of this column know, the Mint specializes in small-house revivals of unjustly forgotten 20th- century plays. I have been reviewing one or two of its shows most seasons for the past decade and a half, and each one I’ve seen has been well chosen and flawlessly acted and staged. No other theater company in America has a more consistently high record of artistic quality.

“Days to Come,” the second of 10 plays by Lillian Hellman to open on Broadway in her lifetime, is one of the most significant of the Mint’s recent revivals, for the original production closed in 1936 after just seven performances and disappeared almost without a trace... Most flops close for self-evident reasons, but there is no obvious reason why “Days to Come” did so: It is an extremely strong piece of work, worthy of direct comparison with such better-known Hellman scripts as “The Children’s Hour” and “The Little Foxes,” and the Mint’s production, directed with lean clarity by J.R. Sullivan, makes so powerful a case for it that I am at a loss to understand why so excellent a play vanished from view....

Reviewing a Mint production is a nightmare for critics who thrive on picking flaws. The cast is very well chosen, especially Janie Brookshire, who plays the matriarch of the Rodman family. Harry Feiner, the set designer, has fit two naturalistic interiors onto the Beckett Theatre’s revolving stage—a neat piece of scenic prestidigitation for a 99-seat off- Broadway house, and one of a kind for which the Mint is justly celebrated. (You can actually see the set being changed during the intermission.) Some of the camera angles show the first row of the audience, whose presence is audible without being in any way intrusive. That’s a happy, even comforting touch: You’ll come away from “Days to Come” feeling as though you’ve seen a real stage show, not a telecast.

 

—Mr. Teachout, the Journal’s drama critic, is the author, most recently, of “Billy and Me.” Write to him at tteachout@wsj.com.[/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

[/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

[TABLE]

[TR]

[TD]

[TABLE]

[TR]

[TD]

[/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

[/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

Edited January 14, 2021 by Lucky

[+ WilliamM]

I did see a revival of the "The Little Fox," at Lincoln Center, but a bit disappointed.

 

Thanks for encouraging watching on line.

 

I saw the one-woman show on Lillian Hellman in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the early 1990s with Elaine Stritch. Fun

[+ EVdude]

@WilliamM I wanted a thread about how to see shows during the pandemic, where online programs were likely the only alternative. Your post has nothing to do with that,

Geeze @Lucky, not only did @William say thank you for your post but he commented directly on your Lillian Hellman play review and added that he saw another play. Seems perfectly appropriate and on topic. Thanks for responding @William.

[+ WilliamM]

Geeze @Lucky, not only did @William say thank you for your post but he commented directly on your Lillian Hellman play review and added that he saw another play. Seems perfectly appropriate and on topic. Thanks for responding @William.

 

It would be like me posting a review of Arthur Miller's The Man Who Had All the Luck" with Chris O'Doonnell which few others saw quite a long time ago.

[bostonman]

I did see a revival of the "The Little Fox,"

 

I guess you needed to see it more than once to get the whole play.

Edited February 1, 2021 by bostonman

[bostonman]

I haven't seen any online plays yet this year, but I have seen 3 cabarets done by colleagues of mine. One excellent, one pretty damn good, and one that needed a lot of direction (and a clearer theme). One of them was produced online and edited down, one was live on Facebook, and one was taped live in a theatre (with no audience), with some "guest performances" edited in.

 

I realize more and more that the 2 toughest things about cabaret are the willingness to land the songs in the audience (even online, one has to find a way to be inviting rather than indulgent), and having truly effective spoken patter between songs. And I think the absolute hardest thing about any kind of online performance is getting used to the total absence of audience response (especially applause) and how to compensate for that instead of letting it be awkward. VERY tough to do.

[OCClient]

My buddy is a member of an improv group here in So Cal. They produced their 1st show of the year via ZOOM a few weeks ago and are rehearsing for the next. Was surprisingly good on ZOOM.