Mint Theater Presents DR. KNOCK, OR THE TRIUMPH OF MEDICINE

The Drama Desk and Obie Award-wining Mint Theater Company today announced their third play of the 2009-2010 season, a rare revival of Dr. Knock, Or The Triumph Of Medicine, Jules Romains' tart 1923 satire. Gus Kaikkonen, who helmed Mint's acclaimed production The Madras House (2007), will direct. Performances will begin April 14th and continue through May 30th, with opening night set for May 10th.

Health care reform of a darkly comic kind drives Dr. Knock. Romains' prescient and topical tale "applies the method of a satirical intellectual farce to the gigantic social problem which presents itself wherever the medical profession is run on the basis of private enterprise," writes The Guardian-in 1926! Knock purchases a small practice in the French countryside and then endeavors to make it thrive by applying modern methodology. "The funniest play about medical quackery since Moliere's Le malade imaginaire." (The Spectator, 1994)

Dr. Knock, Or The Triumph Of Medicine first opened in Paris in 1923. The play ran for an unprecedented five years and made a star of actor Louis Jouvet in the title role. Jouvet would play Dr. Knock almost to the day he died. He revived the play frequently over the next three decades, and starred in three film versions, including the 1951 film, his last completed cinematic role. To this day, the play remains widely read and revived in France. The term Knockisme has entered the language, used to denote popular credibility and gullibility.

In 1928, Dr. Knock debuted in New York. It was directed by Russian émigré Richard Boleslavsky for his American Laboratory Theater, known for cutting-edge productions of new European drama. Brooks Atkinson, writing in the New York Times, admired Romains' "intellectual farce." While never as popular in the United States as in Europe, Dr. Knock remained in the dramatic repertoire until World War II. The BBC filmed two versions of the play, first in 1938 and again in 1968, by which time Dr. Knock was considered a landmark of the French repertoire.

Dr. Knock, Or The Triumph Of Medicine, has not been seen on stage in New York since 1928. "The mystery is why it should have been so ignored," wondered the Spectator at its 1994 London revival, while the Guardian called Dr. Knock "a real parable for our times."

Performances, which begin April 14th and continue through May 30th, 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 www.minttheater.org

 

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