THE NEW YORKER

THE THEATRE

May 11, 2013

This glowing, evocative production is the third play in the Mint Theatre’s survey of the work of the nearly forgotten Irish playwright Teresa Deevy. It’s a weird and wonderful play from 1936, whose central character, vivaciously brought to complex life by Wrenn Schmidt, is an exuberant serving girl of dubious parentage in a cottage household in Lower Ballycar. Katie has ambitions of sainthood or riches, whichever comes first; then Stanislaus Gregg (Patrick Fitzgerald), the head of the house, asks for her hand. Fitzgerald gives a memorably controlled and borderline creepy performance. The director, Jonathan Bank, with the help of a rich, red-wallpapered set, by Vicki R. Davis, and superb, subtle lighting, by Nicole Pearce, creates a world in which longing seems tangible. Deevy’s dialogue is practically minimalist, but in very few words an entire culture is revealed, and the mysteries of the human heart explored.