Mint Theater to Present Hemingway's 'The Fifth Column'

The Drama Desk and Obie Award-wining Mint Theater Company will present the long-delayed premiere production of The Fifth Column  by Ernest Hemingway-not the dramatization of a novel or story-but a drama written for the stage by one of America's most celebrated authors. Performances begin February 26th, and continue through May 4th.

Mint Artistic Director Jonathan Bank directs a cast that includes James Andreassi, Heidi Armbruster (Drama League honoree, "Tea and Sympathy"), Kelly AuCoin (Julius Caeser on Broadway), Ryan Duncan, Ronald Guttman, John Hayden, Joe Hickey, Carlos Lopez, Ned Noyes, Maria Parra, Joe Rayome, Nicole Shalhoub and Teresa Yenque. The Fifth Column will have set design by Vicki R. Davis, costume design by Clint Ramos (Hewes Award winner for Mint's "Madras House"), lighting design by Jeff Nellis, and sound design by Jane Shaw.

"The Fifth Column is the dramatic, sexy and surprisingly funny story of the private and political passions of Philip Rawlings, a counter-espionage agent working for the Republic during the Spanish Civil War. At the heart of the play is a romance between Rawlings and Dorothy Bridges, a journalist in over her head professionally and head-over-her-heels personally. Against a backdrop of treachery and danger, Dorothy and Philip take solace in each other's arms and dream of peace-a dream that threatens Rawlings's commitment to the cause," press notes say.

Hemingway wrote The Fifth Column in 1937 while in Spain as a correspondent for the North American Newspaper Alliance. Franco's army had four columns advancing on Madrid and a "Fifth Column" of hidden fascist sympathizers within the city using terrorist tactics to bring down the government.  "While I was writing the play the Hotel Florida, where we lived and worked, was struck by more than thirty high explosive shells. So if it is not a good play perhaps that is what is the matter with it.  If it is a good play, perhaps those thirty shells helped write it." Hemingway was having an affair with Martha Gellhorn at the time; she eventually became his third wife.  Gellhorn was also in Madrid as a journalist; Spain's Civil War was the first of many conflicts that she covered in her storied career.  Tall, blond and glamorous, Gellhorn served as the model for The Fifth Column's Dorothy Bridges.
 
Until now, the only production of the play was of a bastardized version in 1940, billed as: "adapted by Benjamin Glazer from the published play by Ernest Hemingway." A number of producers were interested in the play when it first became available-but, for various reasons, no one was able to make it happen.  One signed a contract but died in a plane crash before the ink was dry. Another took an option which lapsed when he was unable to raise the money.  Finally The Theatre Guild finally took the play in the fall of 1939-after the war in Spain was over.  They wanted changes that would reflect the outcome of the war and serve the Guild's "crusade against fascism."  Hemingway was preoccupied with finishing his great novel of the war in Spain, "For Whom the Bell Tolls", and he allowed Benjamin Glazer, a Hollywood man who had written the screenplay for A Farewell to Arms to "adapt" the play-to his everlasting regret.  Hemingway declined even to see this production.

Beginning on February 26th 2008, Mint Theater Company will present, for the first-time ever, The Fifth Column as it was originally written-a vibrant, original and compelling drama by a distinct and important American voice. 

The Fifth Column will take place on the 3rd Floor of 311 West 43rd Street, beginning February 26th. For more information, visit www.minttheater.org