Mint Theater's EnrichMINT Events Series Continues With 'Brush Up Your Ibsen!' 9/12

This Saturday, September 12th, the Drama Desk, Lortel and Obie Award-winning Mint Theater Company continues its EnrichMINT Events, an exciting series of post and pre-show discussions throughout the Mint's current engagement of Lennox Robinson's Is Life Worth Living? starring JorDan Baker and Kevin Kilner.

Saturday September 12th, 11:00 to 12:30, prior to the matinee
"Brush Up Your Ibsen!"
Professor J. Ellen Gainor
The De La Mare Repertory Company performs great works from the Russian and Scandinavian Drama for the people of Inish in Lennox Robinson's comedy, Is Life Worth Living? Professor J. Ellen Gainor of Cornell and co-editor of the Norton Anthology of Drama will discuss the plots of various Ibsen, Strindberg and Chekhov dramas, as well as the impact that those works had when they were first produced.

J. Ellen Gainor is Professor of Theatre, Film, and Dance and Associate Dean of the Graduate School at Cornell University. She has written extensively on British and American drama of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and also lectures regularly at professional theaters across the United States, in Canada, and abroad.

The upcoming lineup of EnrichMINT Events includes:

Sunday September 20th after the matinee
"Do Plays Have Consequences?"
Professor Martin Meisel
In Is Life Worth Living?, Robinson shows the powerful influence that the theater has over the inhabitants of Inish, a small seaside town in Ireland. Does he exaggerate the power and influence of the theater and the arts in general over our daily lives? Professor Martin Meisel will explore this provocative question.

Martin Meisel is Brander Matthews Professor Emeritus of Dramatic Literature, Columbia University and author of How Plays Work.

Saturday September 26th after the matinee
"Lennox Robinson and The Abbey Theatre"
Professor John P. Harrington
Robinson played an important role at The Abbey Theatre for nearly his entire professional life, beginning in 1909 when he was made manager of the company at the tender age of 23-and in turn, the work of the Abbey played a critical role in Robinson's development as a playwright. Robinson wrote the first history of the Abbey, covering the first 50 years.

John P. Harrington is the author of The Irish Play on the New York Stage and editor of the Norton Anthology of Modern Irish Drama. He is Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Fordham University.

Saturday October 3rd, 12:00 prior to the matinee
"I Hate Leprechauns"
Amy Stoller, dialect designer and coach
Join Amy Stoller and director Jonathan Bank at The Irish Rogue (356 W. 44th St.) for a delicious Irish breakfast and an enligtening discussion on the use of Irish dialect in the production. Call 212-315-0231 for more information.

Professor Christopher Morash
Christopher Morash is the Head of the School of English, Drama and Media Studies at National University of Ireland, Maynooth. He is the author of A History of Irish Theatre 1601-2000, winner of the 2002 Theater Book Prize. He is currently working on a history of the media in Ireland, commissioned by Cambridge University Press.

Professor Morash will be in residence for a week, conducting the following post-show discussion, a pre-show lecture and a lecture off-site at the Glucksman Ireland House, co-presented by the Mint and NYU.

Sept. 13th Post-show discussion
"These Plays Began to Put Ideas Into Our Heads"
Is Life Worth Living? is a rarity in Irish theatre of the 1930s. It is a play that acknowledges, somewhere off in the wings, the greats of modern drama: Ibsen, Chekhov, and Strindberg. However, it does so with Robinson's characteristically level gaze. Robinson's play manages not only to provide its audiences with a finely crafted theatrical experience; it prompts us to ask about what that experience means for the way we live our lives.

Sept. 16th Pre-show discussion and dinner - $100 per person includes two- course dinner plus either dessert or a glass of wine at Etcetra, Etcetra (352 W 44th) plus your tickets to the performance.
"A Submerged Tradition"
Lennox Robinson was a central figure in the life of The Abbey Theatre over four decades; the author of a series of intelligent, witty plays that probe the ways in which powerful ideas can unsettle ordinary life. Today, however, even his best work is seldom staged. This talk will take a brief look at why Robinson's work has become part of a submerged tradition in Irish theatre, and why, in post-Celtic Tiger Ireland, it may well be time he was rediscovered.
During a delicious two-course meal at Etcetra, Etcetra Professor Christopher Morash will provide enlightening background that will enhance your enjoyment of the evening's performance of Lennox Robinson's charming comedy.

Sept. 17th, 7pm at the Glucksman Ireland House, New York University
One Washington Mews, (212) 998-3950
"Ibsen in Inish: Lennox Robinson and the Staging of Peripheral Modernity"
There is a tendency in Irish cultural history to see the decades after 1926 as a period in which Ireland pulled down the shutters, and went into hibernation. In this reading, the period of intense globalisation of Irish culture over the past decade appears as an abrupt discontinuity. However, recent work on the middle decades of the 20th century suggests that Irish culture in the 1930s and 1940s was more complex, more multiple, and more open than the prevailing view suggests, and consequently that it is possible to trace lines of continuity from the present back to the earlier period. In this regard, Robinson's Is Life Worth Living? emerges as a key play of the period, staging an Irish encounter with modernist European theatre in ways that suggest an audience who saw themselves within a wider world republic of letters.

The Mint Theater's rare revival of Is Life Worth Living? is directed by Jonathan Bank. Performances began August 19th and opening night is set for this Monday, September 14th.

"Legit repertory troupe comes to a small village in Ireland and, after a week or so of Ibsen, Chekhov and Strindberg, the town is off its nut." That, in a nutshell, is the story of Is Life Worth Living? -- a gloriously goofy comedy that imagines the impact a steady diet of serious drama might have on the amiable residents of the seaside town of Inish. "I suppose you would call it farce," Robinson told The New York Times in 1933, "But I'd rather not call it that because well - you know what people think you mean when you call a play farce." Is Life Worth Living? played on Broadway three times in the 1930's but has not been seen in New York since. Brooks Atkinson wrote, "You are permitted to respect the theme of Mr. Robinson's play and to like every character who is in it. If that is not pure comedy, what is?"

Also featured in the cast are Leah Curney, Margaret Daly, Bairbre Dowling, John Keating, Jeremy Lawrence, Erin Moon, Grant Neale, Paul O'Brien, John O'Creagh and Graham Outerbridge.

Performances for Is Life Worth Living? are Tuesday through Thursday at 7 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. & 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2 p.m. Tickets are $45 (through Sept. 20) and $55 (Sept. 22 - Oct. 11). The Mint Theater is at 311 W. 43 St., Third Floor, between Eighth & Ninth Ave. To purchase tickets, or for more information, call 212-315-0231 or visit www.minttheater.org.