The Mint Theater can be consistently relied upon to present interesting, high quality rediscoveries of lost plays. In 2010, they launched a multi-year series of plays by the forgotten Irish playwright Teresa Deevy. With The Price of Thomas Scott, they are undertaking a project entitled Meet Miss Baker. Both of these women were writing plays about the female experience and achieved success on the London stage in first half of the twentieth century. In this particular play the author Elizabeth Baker muses “I wish I knew how far conscience ought to take us.”
Thomas Scott is a draper in London. He is married and has two children. The business is failing. A devoutly religious man, his life is filled with churchgoing. His wife is unhappy but supportive. Daughter Annie is a talented hat designer who dreams of traveling to Paris and creatively expanding her craft. Son Leonard yearns for schooling rather than following in his father’s footsteps. There is no money to ensure either of these wishes come true.
The young individuals in this play discuss that the world seems to be changing all around them. The latest craze involves dance halls. As you might imagine, the religious folk see them as dens of iniquity. Annie ponders whether dancing is really so bad as it’s “so easy to misunderstand when you don’t know.” Religious prejudices uninformed by actual experience is the territory explored in this play. Is her father’s view that dancing is a sin just another religious fad whose time will pass?
The most interesting angle in The Price of Thomas Scott is the ambiguity of the answer to that question. Annie’s father receives a financially lucrative offer for his shop which could change their lives forever. He wrestles with the dilemma of what the shop will become if he sells. Successful businessman Wicksteed cannot understand Mr. Scott’s rigid morality. Read your history, he notes, “how many martyrs were bigoted fools?”
Annie is the central focus of this good play. Women are entering the workforce and considering a life that isn’t simply marriage. She contrasts with her mother who follows her husband’s lead despite her true feelings. Thomas Scott wrestles with his conscience as he considers societal progress. Is progress the devil’s own argument in allowing evil to permeate the world? It may seem ludicrous today to consider dancing a sin. This play forces you to consider a world inhabited with conservative and restrictive values.
I know a very religious person who would not let their children read the Harry Potter series because it contained real magic spells. In my view, such uninformed prejudices seem idiotic. I find ignorance and religious fervor a scary partnership. What I liked about this play is it’s consideration of that viewpoint from both sides. Is a strong moral conviction not merely a prejudice but a belief system worth admiring?
The Mint usually mounts the highest quality off-Broadway productions and The Price of Thomas Scott is no exception. Vicki R. Davis’ set design is a simple and beautiful rendering of a draper’s shop from long ago. The actors do a nice job embodying these relatively simply drawn characters. Donald Corren’s Thomas and Emma Geer’s Annie were nicely shaded characterizations which invited sympathetic respect for their positions. Within this solid cast, Andrew Fallaize (as the Scott’s lodger and Annie’s hopeful suitor) and Mitch Greenberg (as Wicksteed the businessman) stood out for their realistically drawn men of the past.
“If a man can reconcile his actions with his conscience,” does anyone have a right to question him? The Price of Thomas Scott is not a great play somehow rediscovered for the ages. It is, however, a very thoughtful meditation which does not come across as preachy. Instead, Elizabeth Baker wonders aloud and everyone’s point of view is respectfully considered. I look forward to this series at the Mint Theater. Her comedy Partnership and her first performed and perhaps best known play, Chains, will be upcoming productions.
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