THE NEW YORKER

THE THEATRE

September 12, 2011

The Mint presents the second of three plays by Teresa Deevy, the Irish playwright whose work was produced by Dublin’s Abbey Theatre in the nineteen-thirties. Michael and Min Donovan (Aidan Redmond and Rosie Benton) have just been evicted from their home and are squatting in a stony, drafty wreck of a place (inventively designed by Vicki R. Davis). He is stolid and sullen; she is bitter as hell. When Michael comes across a packet containing a hundred pounds—probably stolen and stashed, they both soon realize—Min sees it as the answer to their troubles, but he is determined to do the “right” thing and bring it to the parish priest. The ensuing conflict, involving a number of friends and relatives, explores issues of morality, marriage, poverty, and power. The play’s structure leans toward the melodramatic, and some of the characters (the guilt-inducing mother, the skeevy ne’er-do-well) are straight out of Irish central casting, but Deevy’s dialogue—and, under Jonathan Bank’s direction, the company’s performance—is unfailingly perceptive, poetic, and moving.