London Wall
Opening Night: February 24, 2014
Closing: April 13, 2014
Theater: Mint Theatre
London Wall by John Van Druten explores the tumultuous lives and love affairs of the women employed as shorthand typists in a busy solicitor’s office in 1930’s London. Pat Milligan, a naïve young typist, falls for the charms of a predatory junior lawyer. Watching with concern is the firm’s senior secretary, her too-timid suitor and several others in the office. Presiding over all is Mr. Walker, gamely trying to navigate a new kind of office where men and women must work side by side.
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February 24, 2014
"The only way to run an office is for every member to make himself…or herself…as nearly as possible an automaton, or a machine," says a head solicitor in John Van Druten’s 1931 commentary on workplace gender politics, London Wall. "You can’t bring personalities and personal relationships into business." These may sound like the words of a crusty old-fashioned boss, but by the end of the play he has revealed himself to be quite the progressive thinker trying to navigate the tricky business of employee relations during a time when the mixing of genders in the workplace was still rather new.
READ THE REVIEWFebruary 24, 2014
The Mint, known for digging up forgotten works, has outdone itself with London Wall, a title even hard-core theatre fans will find unfamiliar. This isn’t surprising; the author, John Van Druten, a reliable mid-20th-century craftsman (The Voice of the Turtle; I Am a Camera; and Bell, Book and Candle, among others) himself dismissed this 1931 West End flop as being overly thin and trivial. He never risked Broadway with it, fearing that its depiction of daily life in a London law office wouldn’t interest American audiences.
READ THE REVIEWFebruary 25, 2014
The Mint Theater Company does revivals of plays you likely haven’t seen — or even heard of. A specialty is British dramas of the early decades of the 20th century. These works are often intriguing because, while they’re period pieces, they’re also modern — their characters have problems and emotions not that different from our own. John Van Druten’s 1931 London Wall, which opened Monday night, is a charming example, in a sincere, committed production directed by Davis McCallum.
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February 24, 2014
Rediscovering forgotten plays is the Mint Theater Company’s métier, but its production of London Wall is as fine a showcase for rising director Davis McCallum and his nimble cast as it is for the late playwright John Van Druten. This carefully observed 1931 workplace drama is both of its time and ahead of it as it follows four single women working as typists at a law firm and navigating the rocky road of romance. Among them is young Pat (Elise Kibler), whose attractive suitor (Christopher Sears, adorably frisky) is passive and poor. She’s easily charmed by a wolfish lawyer (Stephen Plunkett, smoothly menacing), despite the cautions of Miss Janus (Julia Coffey, delivering the show’s most affecting performance), a coworker who’s weary, 35 and languishing with an inattentive fiancé.
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February 25, 2014
In the early 1930s, when the Great Depression had the planet in its grip, the playwright John van Druten could be counted on to provide Broadway audiences with a particular brand of escape: sophisticated modern comedies set amid London’s privileged classes. The many smart women in van Druten plays like There’s Always Juliet, After All and The Distaff Side wrestled with questions of autonomy and purpose. But if they joined the work force, it wasn’t for the cash. Of that, they had plenty. Money is hardly a given, however, for the typists at the center of van Druten’s lively 1931 office comedy, London Wall, a provocative, socially conscious bit of fun that never made it to Broadway.
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