As  the 21^st Century enters its second decade, the plays  of a hundred years earlier are attracting the eyes of the artistic directors of a number of New  York theatres. Last week we had a hit from  the 1906 season, Langdon Mitchell’s The New York Idea, the week before we had Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of being Earnest from the turn of the century, and now the Mint has favored us with Arnold Bennett’s What the Public Wants, which though it didn’t arrive on Broadway until 1922, was written and first staged in Britain in 1909.  Next I suppose we’ll be getting Clyde Fitch’s The Girl Who Has Everything , a gem from the season of 1906. [Read more...]