The scene opens on a nice, comfortable, upper-middle-class living room. The walls are covered in patterned gray wallpaper, the furniture is well-used but not shabby, and the ceiling-high window with the to-the-floor drapes reveals a lovely autumn day. How could anything go wrong in such a cozy environment? But then, things start to get out of whack. The two maids, both Irish, are tidying up and talking. The older one, who is Hannah (Kim Martin-Cotton), the family cook, demands that young Lucy (Betsy Hogg) hand over her money. What’s happening here; some kind of domestic extortion? Lucy demurs, but Hannah insists, because “the boys need it.” The boys are the local workers at the brush factory, and they’re out on strike to get a decent wage. They’re living in Hannah’s sister’s boarding house, rent free. The owner of the brush factory is Andrew Rodman (Larry Bull), and he’s Hannah’s boss, too. This is his house. Uh oh. Cora Rodman (Mary Bacon) enters, and bitches about her breakfast tray. She’s Andrew’s sister, considers the house as much hers as his, and she is chronically dissatisfied. She plainly doesn’t like Andrew’s wife Julie (Janie Brookshire), who is restless, too, but in a different way. Julie clearly has a past with Andrew’s best friend Henry Ellicott (Ted Deasy), but she seems pretty bored with him, too. When Tom Firth (Chris Henry Coffey), leader of the strikers comes in, literally hat in hand, to plead with Andrew for a living wage, he repeats that the two men have always been friends. Andrew is at a loss; he’s in debt, and he just can’t swing it. Tom leaves, desperate and deeply disappointed. There’s a lot of free floating negative energy; the year is 1936, and the little Cleveland suburb of Callom, Ohio, is about to explode. Strike breakers have arrived. They’ve been employed by a shady character named Sam Wilkie (Dan Daily). He’s a smiling cobra. He’s promised Andrew that his men are professional brush makers, and if he buys that, Wilkie’s ready to sell him swamp land in Florida. In fact, he’s brought in goons, and he plants two of his finest, Mossie Dowel (Geoffrey Allen Murphy) and Joe Easter (Evan Zes) to “protect” the family in their home. The dese- dem- and does guys make themselves right at home, playing cards and smoking in the now less than lovely living room. Union man Leo Whalen has come to support the strikers. He’s smart, cynical, dedicated, and as played by Roderick Hill, pretty darn sexy. Wilkie is a ringer for Charles During; Whalen brings to mind Steve McQueen. Guess which one appeals to the edgy Julie? What follows is provoked violence, with dire consequences all around. The Mint Theater Company has the stated purpose of rescuing lost plays. Days to Come was an early bomb for Hellman, who had triumphed with The Children’s Hour. Hellman admitted to vomiting while watching the opening night of the play and was understandably upset when William Randolph Hearst and his guests, talking loudly, walked out of the theater during the second act. Those on the left were equally critical, because the play seemed wishy-washy about the dynamic of union/management dealings. Days to Come was revived once, in 1978, but was, for the most part, forgotten in the Hellman canon. With this production, Mint Theater Company has fulfilled its mission to resurrect forgotten worthwhile dramas. They neatly prove that with fine actors, skillful directing, and respect for the written word, discarded work by author Hellman is still entertaining theater.
