The Mint production of Lillian Hellman's Days to Come is a smart, relevant play burdened with plotlines that are its undoing. Hellman focuses on two major problems, a family-run labor strike threatening a brush factory, which is the major industry in the small town of Callom, Ohio. At the same time, it zeroes in on the personal problems of the family that owns the factory. The complexity blurs the focus of each side. Resolution is slow coming and hard to nail down. While relevant in the Depression days of 1936, Days to Come was a box office disaster. After great success with The Children's Hour, Hellman's ambitious follow-up play is a broad canvas of law and order, financial trickery, corporate rights, personal expectations, and individual passions, the haves and have-nots. Still it failed to run more than seven days. It was a blow to her self-esteem. According to program notes by Maya Cantu, Hellman later made revisions to Days to Come, which was published in “Collected Plays” in 1971. Apparently, this revised edition, particularly its second act, was used in a more successful staging at off-Broadway's WPA Theater, and this is the version currently produced by the Mint Theater Company. Directed by J. R. Sullivan and played by an able cast of eleven, Days to Come tells a riveting story in a plodding way (though Sullivan gives it a relatively smooth staging in Act Two). Much of the action takes place in the comfortable home of factory boss, Andrew Rodman (Larry Bull). At the top of the play, passions simmer as the two housekeepers, played by Kim-Martin Cotton and Betsy Hogg, worry about the factory workers' wage cuts and doing their part to support them. To avoid the threatened strike, Rodman is persuaded by his slippery lawyer, Henry Ellicott (Ted Deasy), to bring in strike-breakers, a nattily-dressed thug, Sam Wilkie (Dan Daily), and two henchmen straight out of a '30's Cagney gangster flick. Snapped out of central casting, Geoffrey Murphy (as Mossie Dowel) and Evan Zes (as Joe Easter), are assigned to guard the house in case of violence. The characters all seem to stand for something but are scantily drawn, providing impressions. On the workers' side is Thomas Firth (Chris Henry Coffey), as spokesman and family friend. He learns from union organizer Leo Whalen, convincingly played by Roderick Hill, that there will be trouble when Wilkie is brought to town. Bull reflects Rodman's inability to cope with his company leadership position situation any better than he can cope with his wife, Julie, played by Janie Brookshire, who spends most of her time wandering in the woods, searching for...who knows, who cares? She is younger than her husband and, as Hellman calls her, is "a modern lost lady," portrayed like a pale watercolor with an aura but no definition. In this passionless marriage and with the Rodman family legacy threatened, Bull is lost, with little ethical grip sustaining him. Sharing this family home is Rodman's sister, Cora, a bitter, demanding do-nothing, played with tight-faced self-involvement by Mary Bacon, and coming across as sharp as a razor blade. Designed by Harry Feiner, the Rodman's living room looks out on a garden that looks like a paint-by-numbers kit. The room itself, however, is warm and period authentic. The set folds later to reveal a corner that is Whalen's cluttered office, a place where Julie wanders to find...whatever, but nothing Whalen can offer. Jane Shaw provides sound effects, especially effective with rain. Lighting by Christian DeAngelis adds atmosphere and designer Andrea Varga's costumes are fitting for the early 1930's. Days to Come is best viewed as a period piece. In 1939, another play, The Little Foxes, would be more successful untangling the financial legacy of a wealthy family and playing out Hellman's belief that private ethics and morality affect the politics of society.
