Days To Come Struggles To Little Affect

Lillian Hellman’s play Days to Come was never going to be an easy show, but I was surprised to find it the rare Mint Theater miss. It’s not that it is bad, it just isn’t compelling, and its one possible chance is hamstrung by timing.

Days to Come, written and premiered in 1936, meanders between the story of a manufacturing strike hitting a tight knit Ohio town and a secondary story about the factory’s owner’s wife. 

Larry Bull, Chris Henry Coffey, Ted Deasy, Rodrick Hill, Janie Brookshire

The story of the strike revolves around the impact of the strike on the factory owner, who loves this little town and its people. The factory owner, Andrew Rodman (an underused Larry Bull), is a good man forced to hold down wages which causes him great angst but it causes his co-owners, a business friend and his sister, no angst what so ever. In fact, the co-owners force him to hire “strikebreakers” and he is too naïve to know that this is just another term for hired guns. The handsome young union organizer played Roderick Hill, is under no such allusions. He tries to keep the striking workers from responding to the threats and taunts of the strikebreakers. If they respond physically, then the police (many of them newly deputized thugs) can arrest them and break the strike. And while this is the main story, most of that action happens off stage. The conflict is represented onstage by an old friend of the boss and the new union organizer who show up to try to talk sense into the owner, versus a stereotype of evil in the head thug (well played over the top by Dan Daily) and the uncaring sister (Kim Martin-Cotton).

And then there is the story revolving around the wife. Julia (Janie Brookshire) is barely a wife to the very passive Andrew – this is not Mr. Bull’s fault, the story is written in a manner to suggest he has a great weakness in character, manifest by the inability to inspire his wife. As in Ms. Hellman’s play Little Foxes, the female lead is headstrong and demanding. Here she is also an adulteress and ungrateful, bringing downfall upon the men that she crosses paths with. But in today’s age of #metoo, Ms. Brookshire plays her not as a narcissistic adult, but as a sensitive, albeit emotionally adolescent girlish-woman trying to come to grips with her feelings. I longed for a bit of 1930s Bette Davis or Joan Crawford to crawl out and let loose that she enjoyed her life, but no such luck. Her contemporary motivation was in stark contrast to the 1930’s attitude of all the other players. She dumps her husband’s business partner early in the show, but it isn’t more than a few moments before the brash handsome union organizer shows up. What will happen?

Roderick Hill, Janie Brookshire

Days to Come wraps up this show with an attack on the striking workers, the end of the strike, the end of Mr. Bull’s hopes for a unified town, the end of at least one affair and one marriage and the ambivalence of Julia towards all of it. I was disappointed because I really do love the Mint and look forward to everything they present. This was a rare failure, despite some exceptional acting by Misters Bull, Hill and Daily.

Days to Come | Playwright: Lillian Hellmen | Director: J. R. Sullivan | Cast: Mary Bacon, Jane Brookshire, Larry Bull, Chris Henry Coffey, Dan Daily, Ted Deasy, Roderick Hill, Betsy Hogg, Kim Martin-Cotten, Geoffrey Allen Murhpy, Evan Zes

Mary Broome: Funny, Fresh and Relevant after 101 years

Mary Broome is a 1911 comedy about an upstairs/downstairs relationship, which doesn’t seem to hold much promise of topicality in this day and age.  But watching this excellent production proves that the issues of family and class are just as relevant today as they were then, albeit in different forms.

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Janie Brookshire as Mary Bloom & Roderick Hill as Leonard Timbrell

Mary Broome, of the title, is a pretty young maid at the Timbrell residence.  She has become pregnant after a dalliance with the younger, flightier son, Leonard Timbrell.  Leonard, an amusing layabout, is coerced into marriage by his father, who has had enough of his son’s laziness.   Humor is then found as Mary and Leonard try to live up to the Timbrell’s, and society’s, expectations.  Mary proves more adapt at this than Leonard, who continues to infuriate his father and perplex everyone else.

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The smart and funny Leonard brings to mind any number of pampered and spoiled children of fame today, happy to be ironic but loath to move into adulthood.  It is an easy stereotype that crosses periods from Edwardian England to MTV.

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The acting is excellent across the board, but four actor stand out mainly due to the size of their roles.  At the heart of the story is Leonard Timbrell, played Roderick Hill.  Mr. Hill keeps the charming Leonard grounded, in a role that could have easily slipped to smarmy.  Leonard is an eternal youth, not just unaware of responsibilities, but actively ignorant of them.  As Mary Broome, Janie Brookshire brings a sweet nature to the role.  Mary takes responsibility for her actions, scandalous at the time.  But Mary is confused by her new husband, unable to decipher the meaning in his tumultuous use of language.  Ms. Brookshire handles the role effortlessly, her Mary might be uneducated, but she is smart and self-reliant.  Mr. Hill and Ms. Brookshire create a chemistry that brings the relationship to life in an utterly believable manner.

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Kristin Griffith and Graeme Malcolm play the parents, and they prove that parenting hasn’t changed much in a century.  Mr. Malcolm, as Leonard’s father, attempts to foist responsibility on his wayward son.  And Ms. Griffith, as Mrs. Timbrell, is a mother who protecting young Leonard.  Mother and son have a close relationship here, and she understands she has been too indulgent.  At the same time, Leonard sees a passion and intelligence in his mother that she has to keep cloaked in this England.  Ms. Griffith’s impression of Leonard comes through to the audience, building our tolerance of his antics.

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Finally, I would be remiss not to point out Jill Tanner, who plays two roles perfectly.  In few words, but with a steady supply of understated looks and arched eyebrows, she consistently is the voice of the viewer.  She is outstanding without ever looking like she is trying.

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The Mint Theater Company specializes in forgotten plays and they have struck gold in Mary Broome.  The perfect sense of time and place is created by wonderful sets and costumes - by Roger Hanna and Martha Hally respectively.  There is a cleaver use of pictures on stage that define one viewpoint of the proceedings.  Director Jonathan Bank has used his cast and crew judiciously to create a very relevant Mary Broome – well worth your time.

Mary Broome Cast (from left) Kristin Griffith, Julie Jesneck, Katie Fabel,
Rod Brogan Janie Brookshire, Graeme Malcolm and Roderick Hill

Mary Broome

Playwright: Allan Monkhouse

Director: Jonathan Bank

Cast: Rod Brogan, Janie Brookshire, Katie Fabel, Kristin Griffith, Roderick Hill, Julie Jesneck, Patricia Kilgarriff, Graeme Malcolm, Douglas Rees, Erica Swindell, Jill Tanner

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