Mint Theater continued its exhaustive exploration into the work of Teresa Deevy—which began with WIFE TO JAMES WHELAN in 2010 and TEMPORAL POWERS in 2011—with a production of Deevy’s compelling drama, Katie Roche. The play’s mercurial heroine is a servant girl whose romantic ambitions reach for the heavens. “Katie Roche is the third Deevy work to be produced by the Mint in as many years. It may be the best one yet,” 1 wrote David Barbour in Lighting and Sound America.
Katie Roche made its Abbey Theater premiere in 1936. The play was greeted with such enthusiasm that it was included in the Gollancz Anthology of “Famous Plays of 1936” along with Clifford Odets’Awake and Sing. The Abbey revived the play in 1949, 1975, and 1994—each time to critical acclaim.
Our presentation of Katie Roche marked the play’s first appearance in New York since 1937. A “glowing, evocative production,” hailed the New Yorker. “Deevy’s dialogue is practically minimalist, but in very few words an entire culture is revealed, and the mysteries of the human heart explored.”2Our efforts achieved international recognition as well. Fintan O’Toole of The Irish Times wrote “There has been no coherent exploration of Deevy’s work as a whole by any Irish company…There are good reasons, both social and artistic, why Irish theatre should pay attention to this project.” 3
Teresa Deevy was born in 1894 as the youngest of thirteen children in Waterford, Ireland. Though she intended to teach, Teresa contracted Meniere’s disease while at University College Dublin and lost her hearing. She went to London to study lip-reading and the theater provided her an opportunity to practice—there she discovered her calling.
Despite obvious obstacles and years of rejection, Teresa eventually became a celebrated playwright. She had six plays produced at Ireland’s National Theater, the Abbey, between the years 1930 and 1936.
It was KATIE ROCHE that solidified her place as Ireland’s most important female dramatist since Lady Gregory. A servant girl whose mercurial ambitions reach for the heavens, Deevy’s remarkable heroine introduced a study of feminine power with unprecedented subtlety and depth.
Mint Theater Company has single-handedly put Teresa Deevy back onto the literary map with our acclaimed productions of WIFE TO JAMES WHELAN in 2010 and TEMPORAL POWERS
in 2011.
By Maya Cantu
PROFESSOR ANGELA ALAIMO O'DONNELL
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF THE CURRAN CENTER FOR AMERICAN CATHOLIC STUDIES, FORDHAM UNIVERSITY
Teresa Deevy’s audience in Ireland in the 1930’s was thoroughly steeped in the Catholic faith. Professor O’Donnell will help to provide that context for Katie Roche, putting the play into the context of faith and transcendence.
O’Donnell is a poet and professor at Fordham U. where she teaches English, Creative Writing, and interdisciplinary courses in American Catholic Studies. In addition to writing poems, O’Donnell writes essays that engage the nexus between art and religion, with an emphasis on literature in the context of the Catholic intellectual tradition.
O’Donnell’s essays and reviews appear in journals such as America, Commonweal, Studies in Philology, Christianity and Literature and have been included in a variety of collections and anthologies, including The Catholic Studies Reader (Fordham Press, 2011) and Teaching the Tradition(Oxford University Press, 2012).
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PROFESSOR CHRISTOPHER MORASH
HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND, MAYNOOTH
Professor Morash is the author of A History of Irish Theatre 1601-2000, winner of the 2002 Theater Book Prize and A History of the Media in Ireland, both published by Cambridge University Press. Morash is the author of several other books and numerous papers. He is a much sought after speaker and will be returning to the Mint for his fourth straight year, having first come to New York in 2009 to discuss Lennox Robinson’s Is Life Worth Living.
Chris is a co-editor of Teresa Deevy Reclaimed.
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PROFESSOR JOHN P. HARRINGTON
PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH AND DEAN OF THE FACULTY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES AT FORDHAM UNIVERSITY
Harrington was educated at Columbia University, University College, Dublin, and he earned his Ph.D. in literature from Rutgers University. He has written extensively on Irish literature and culture, includingThe Irish Beckett (1991), The Irish Play on the New York Stage (1997), and The Life of the Neighborhood Playhouse on Grand Street (2007). He edited W. W. Norton’s anthology Modern and Contemporary Irish Drama (1991; new edition 2008) and Irish Theater in America (2009). Harrington is past President of the American Conference for Irish Studies, founding member of the International Committee of the Irish Theatrical Diaspora project, and North American Editor of Irish Studies Review.
John is a co-editor of Teresa Deevy Reclaimed and a member of the Mint Board of Trustees.
PROFESSOR ABBY BENDER
ADJUNCT ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF IRISH STUDIES, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
Professor Bender’s research and teaching interests focus on Irish literature and culture in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Her approach is often informed by religious and political history, as well as transnational, postcolonial, and cultural studies. Professor Bender has been an invited speaker at the Columbia University Irish Studies Seminar, The James Joyce Summer School in Dublin, and the New York Public Library. At NYU, she teaches courses on Irish Drama, James Joyce, Contemporary Irish Fiction, and Women’s Writing in Ireland.
PROFESSOR EMILIE PINE
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF MODERN DRAMA AND IRISH STUDIES, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN, IRELAND
Teresa Deevy was an important voice in Ireland in the 1930s as she challenged the cultural orthodoxies of Church and State by creating characters who rail against the limitations put upon their dreams. In Katie Roche we see the passions and struggles of a young woman who tries to shape her own fate in an age of conformity. In this post-show talk, Emilie Pine will discuss Katie Roche and how the play reflects and responds to the particular exigencies of the new Irish Free State.
Emilie Pine is an Assistant Professor at University College Dublin, Ireland, where she teaches modern drama and Irish cultural studies. Her book on contemporary Irish culture is titled The Politics of Memory. She is currently writing a cultural history of Ireland in the 1930s and is Director of the Irish Memory Studies Research Project.
