DR KNOCK, OR THE TRIUMPH OF MEDICINE Plays Through 5/10 At The Mint

The Drama Desk and Obie Award-wining Mint Theater Company today announced the cast for their third play of the 2009-2010 season, a rare revival of Dr. Knock, Or The Triumph Of Medicine, Jules Romains' prescient 1923 satire. Gus Kaikkonen, who helmed Mint's acclaimed production The Madras House (2007), will direct, using his own translation and featuring a cast that includes Scott Barrow (33 Variations, Embraceable Me), Thomas M. Hammond (The Madras House, Hamlet (TFANA), The Receptionist], Jennifer Harmon (Dividing the Estate, Barefoot in the Park, Seascape), Patrick Husted (Dr. Bob in Bill W. and Dr. Bob, Wit), Patti Perkins (The Full Monty), and Chris Mixon (eight seasons with Alabama Shakespeare and four seasons for Utah Shakespearean Festival). This Off-Broadway engagement began April 14th and continue through June 6th, with Opening Night set for May 10th.

Health care reform of a darkly comic kind drives Dr. Knock, Or The Triumph Of Medicine. "It is perhaps an appropriately ironic tribute to 20th Century medical advances that Jules Romains' biting satire, Dr. Knock, has managed to keep all its teeth and remained fit and healthy," wrote Time Out London in 1994. "By leveling his sights on such a mercurial, swiftly moving target, Romains has virtually ensured perpetual topicality for his stylish, sparkling work."

"Satire and fun are exquisitely mingled" (The Times, London, 1928) as Dr. Knock purchases a moribund practice in sleepy Saint-Maurice and proceeds to rouse the populace to all the advantages that modern medicine has to offer. In the process "he transforms an entire district of unhappily healthy citizens into a flourishing community of happy invalids" (The Times, London, 1994). "The real joke is that Dr. Knock is motivated not by greed or gain but by a perverted idealism," observed the Guardian's Michael Billington.

Dr. Knock, though almost unknown in America, has a long and distinguished history. It premiered in Paris in 1923, running for an unprecedented five years. It made Romains a household name. By the time Dr. Knock premiered, Romains had already achieved acclaim as both poet and playwright, but Knock was his dramatic pièce de resistance. After its phenomenal first run, the play became a staple of the French and European repertoire. Regular revivals appeared through the 1960s. Harley Granville-Barker's English version was published in 1925; a London production followed one year later and premiered in New York in 1928. Knock transcended the era's media, conquering stage, screen and television. The BBC filmed Dr. Knock in 1938 and again in 1968. To this day, French schoolchildren still read Dr. Knock. Medical students mount amateur productions. The term knockisme has entered the language to describe gullibility. In England, Dr. Knock was revived successfully at London's Orange Tree Theatre in 1979 and in 1994. Now, for the first time in 72 years, the Mint offers New York audiences a chance to see this neglected French masterpiece. "The mystery is why it should have been so ignored," wondered the Spectator's Sheridan Morley at the 1994 London revival, while the Guardian's Lyn Gardner called Dr. Knock "a real parable for our times."

Jules Romains (1885-1972) ranked among the most produced playwrights in the world during the 1930s, alongside Shaw and Pirandello. His most famous work, the 27-volume novel Men of Good Will, is comparable to the works of Zola and Proust in scale and ambition. Romains began his writing career as a poet, publishing his first volume of poems, La vie unanime, in 1908. They outlined his new philosophy of Unanimism, which he developed while wandering the streets of Paris. In Unanimism, Romains envisioned "the interconnectedness of all people, that groups possess a sort of collective soul, generated by disparate individuals who make up the group," according to biographer Susan McCready. Unanimism influenced a generation of avant-garde thinkers and artists. The precepts of Unanimism also inspired Romains' own plays and novels; he was particularly fascinated by conflicts between group and individuals. In his first play, the verse drama L'Armée dans la ville, a town resists invasion through collective effort. Jean Musse (1930), an eerie predictor of World War II, examines the struggle between an earnest everyman and a fascist government. Donogoo (1931) shows a group of wily investors hoodwinking the public into a Ponzi scheme surrounding an imaginary city called Donogoo -then everyone is trumped when the imaginary city becomes real.

During World War II, Romains and his wife fled France. The Gestapo ransacked their apartment, destroying many of their personal papers. Romains traveled throughout the US and Mexico, teaching at various universities. From 1936 to 1939, Romains served as President of PEN, the international writers' association. In 1946, Romains was elected to the Académie Française, the pre-eminent body governing the French language. He moved back to France, living out the remainder of his life as a respected man of letters. He died in Paris at 86.

Performances, which began April 14th and continue through June 6th, will be Tuesday through Thursday at 7 PM, Friday at 8 PM, Saturday at 2 PM & 8 PM, and Sunday at 2 PM. Tickets are $55. All performances will take place on the Third Floor of 311 West 43rd Street. To purchase tickets, or for more information, call 212/315-0231 or visit http://www.minttheater.org.

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