The Lonely Way Extends at Mint Theater to May 1

Mint Theater Company has announced that its premiere of Arthur Schnitzler's Der einsame Weg entitled The Lonely Way will continue through Sunday, May 1st due to critical acclaim and popular demand.

Mint, "that truffle hound of half-buried treasures from the past" (Village Voice), is proud to premiere another of Schnitzler's neglected masterpieces for New York theatergoers in a brand new English-language translation commissioned by Mint from Margaret Schaefer, who has translated two volumes of Schnitzler prose, in collaboration with artistic director Jonathan Bank. In conjunction with the production, Mint has published a volume entitled Arthur Schnitzler Reclaimed containing both Far and Wide and The Lonely Way, which is now available. The book is yet another facet of Mint's effort to extend the reach of its mission, "beyond 43rd street and out into the rest of the nation," according to Bank. "Schnitzler is a playwright who deserves the attention of anyone serious about the modern theater."

The Lonely Way is a subtle and redemptive drama that explores the question of what makes a rewarding life. The story revolves around the brilliant but failed artist Julian Fichtner, at middle age with nothing to show for his life-long pursuit of pleasure, freedom and self-expression. After years of restless wandering, Julian returns home in the hopes of giving meaning to his existence by being near his 23 year-old son - a young soldier who has no idea that Julian is his father.

This haunting play has never been seen in New York and was only produced once in the US: in 1931 the Theater Guild produced an out-of-town tryout in Baltimore and Washington, but when the leading man broke his leg, plans to bring the play to New York were shelved. 101 years after it was first written, Mint will give New York theatergoers their first chance ever to see this Schnitzler masterpiece.

Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931) was one of the most famous of all of the great personalities in Vienna at the turn of the last century. A prolific author, he wrote more than twenty prose works in addition to over twenty-five plays. From before 1900 until 1925, Schnitzler was more talked about, and his plays were more performed on the stages of Germany and Austria than any other writer. Sigmund Freud wrote Schnitzler a letter in 1922, in honor of his sixtieth birthday, describing the writer as his artistic doppelganger. "Whenever I am absorbed in one of your beautiful creations I invariably seem to find beneath their poetic surface the very suppositions, interests, and conclusions that are also mine…I have formed the impression that you know through intuition…everything that I have discovered by laborious work on other people."

Schnitzler was both a Jew and a critic of the Austrian Monarchy, contributing to the censorship of his work in his lifetime, and by the Nazi's after his death. His work ultimately suffered the same fate as the Viennese culture that he was describing and vanished into obscurity after Word War I. James R. McWilliams writes in Scribner's European Writers that it was, "virulent and lingering anti-Semitism that was the root cause of Schnitzler's relegation to near oblivion after his death. …Schnitzler was contemptuously dismissed as the representative of refined Jewish decadence. He was singled out more than any other writer because he had been most prominent and had antagonized the most people… Since he had not been a fighter for social progress, but had pursued his lonely calling undeterred by the ferment in society, his name was not revived by the West during the struggle against Fascism, and after World War II he was still given short shrift by critics in Germany and Austria."

Mint Theater Company has a celebrated reputation for re-discovering worthy but neglected gems such as J.M. Barrie's Echoes of the War and D.H. Lawrence's The Daughter-in-Law, which was nominated for a 2004 Drama Desk Award as Outstanding Revival and named by The New York Times as one of the top ten productions of the year in 2003. In 2001, the Mint was awarded an Obie grant for "combining the excitement of discovery with the richness of tradition." Mint was awarded a special 2002 Drama Desk Award for "Unearthing, presenting and preserving forgotten plays of merit." Mint has published a volume of plays entitled, Worthy But Neglected: Plays of the Mint Theater Company which includes such acclaimed Mint hits as Mr. Pim Passes By, The House of Mirth, Alison's House, Miss Lulu Bett, Welcome to Our City, Diana of Dobson's and Rutherford and Son.

Jonathan Bank, who previously adapted and directed Far and Wide at the Mint, will direct a cast that includes Eric Alperin, Lisa Bostnar, Ronald Guttman, Bennett Leak, George Morfogen, Sherry Skinner, Constance Tarbox, Hans Tester, and John Leonard Thompson. The Lonely Way will have set design by Vicki R. Davis, lighting design by Ben Stanton and costume design by Henry Shaffer.

Performances for The Lonely Way will be Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 7 PM, Friday and Saturday at 8 PM, with matinees Saturday and Sunday at 2 PM. Tickets will be $45. To order tickets, call 212/315-0231, or visit the Mint on-line Box Office at www.minttheater.org The Mint Theater is located on the 5th floor of 311 West 43rd Street.

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