The first New York revival in 92 years of the 1906 play adapted from Edith Wharton’s novel, the Mint’s elegant production of THE HOUSE OF MIRTH preserved Wharton and Fitch’s script while also harkening back to its source, adding dialogue from the novel and restoring its tragic ending.

“Without tampering with the outline Fitch and Wharton had created, I inserted some dialogue from the novel that may have been deemed too ‘literary’ for the American stage in 1906,” explained THE HOUSE OF MIRTH director Jonathan Bank in WORTHY BUT NEGLECTED: Plays of the Mint Theater. “Mostly I tried to solve the problem of the play’s ending. I eventually discarded the two different options that Wharton and Fitch had explored in the play’s brief performance life, and took my version from the novel, verbatim.”

The approach proved successful. Nytheatre.com hailed, “Director Jonathan Bank moves the story along masterfully with great sensitivity and intelligence. He and his company paint a vivid picture of a milieu built around rumor and greed and self-interest, affording us the chance to see how far we’ve come—and, perhaps, how little things have changed—since Miss Wharton’s day.”¹

• 1. THE HOUSE OF MIRTH NYTHEATRE.COM