Teresa Deevy

(1894-1963)

Teresa Deevy was born on January 21, 1894 at “Landscape,” her family’s home in Waterford. She was the youngest of thirteen children. Her father died when she just three. As a result, Tessa, as she was known, formed an unusually strong bond with her mother who sensed a creative spark and fostered the girl’s fledging imagination — encouraging her to make up stories about everyday objects in their home.


Cheerful and inquisitive, Teresa excelled in the classroom and on the playing field. She wrote for the school literary magazine, sang in the choir, earned honors in piano, and never lost a match as a left half-back on the hockey team.


After graduation, Deevy enrolled in the University College, Dublin, where she planned to earn an arts teaching degree. After about a year she began to feel ill; her ears rang and she suffered frequent bouts of vertigo. She was diagnosed with Meniere’s disease, an incurable condition caused by fluid imbalance in the inner ear. Within a few years, Teresa had completely lost her hearing.


Apparently undaunted by herdisability, Deevy moved to London to study lip reading. In London she discovered theatre. She studied the scripts beforehand and sat in the front row night after night, entranced by what she saw. She was particularly impressed by Shaw and Chekhov, and decided to become a playwright.


It was an unusual ambition— and Teresa was far from typical. She had a quiet genius for understanding the intricacies of the human heart. Her plays would show not only a distinct gift for dialogue, but an uncanny appreciation for meaning hidden between the lines. Her nephew Jack spoke feelingly about her striking ability to read people’s thoughts—perhaps compensation for the loss of her hearing.

 

 

EXTENDED through October 3rd

"One of the most undeservedly neglected and significant Irish playwrights of the 20th Century"
- The Irish Times, 1994

"An American artistic director has taken a leap of faith in producing a long forgotten play that was shunned by Irish theatres 70 years ago."

- The Sunday Times (U.K.) , 8/15/10, full article HERE

"Mint artistic director Jonathan Bank directs the American premiere of Deevy's portrait of male ego, willful womanhood and capitalistic success — and how all three shatter a potential true love."
- Playbill

  

Laughter. Passion. Heartbreak. An unconventional romance set in a small Irish town— A newly discovered play by “one of Ireland’s best and most neglected dramatists.” - The Irish Times

Audiences are delighted with Wife to James Whelan: read their reviews on The New York Times.

 

James is determined to make his mark.  Nan thinks he should be content with what he has.  When James takes a prized job in Dublin, he leaves Nan behind.  “I’ll come back to Kilbeggan to do something,” he vows.  James asks Nan to wait for him, but she makes no promises.

 

We next see James seven years later, sole proprietor of a new enterprise in Kilbeggan, the “Silver Wings” Bus Service and “all the girls are going at him full tilt.”  Three women might be ‘Wife to James Whelan’: Nan, his true love, Kate, his true friend, and Nora, who appeals to his ambition—but can anyone or anything bring him happiness?

 

Beginning on a lazy day in May, the play bursts out with unexpected power and passion.  “A play of tragic proportion”, declared the Irish Times, comparing James to King Lear, “a tormented figure, passionate yet ambitious, kindly yet prone to blinding anger.”

“A remarkably successful attempt to present in local terms a tragic situation cast in the classical mould,” writes the Irish Tatler. “The hero and heroine with their twisted and conflicting passions belong to the world of Sophocles and Hardy.” 

 

Deevy tells their story with insight and sensitivity; her treatment is “unique in its subtlety,”1 and profound in its psychological complexity.  “A simple play, skillfully devised, about a complex character, it opens by setting out its thesis, and establishing its conflicts; then, very humanely, leaves the biggest of them unsolved.”2

 

WIFE TO JAMES WHELAN is “the ultimate testimony to Deevy’s originality, sensitivity, and deep understanding of human nature.”3

 

1.  Irish University Review, 1995.     2.  The Irish Independent, 1956  3.  Irish University Review, 1995.

 

   

EXTENDED through October 3rd!

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