Peter Garside calls himself a demagogue, freely admits he’s in politics to make money, and says “the public likes to be fooled.”  It’s a corrupt attitude that, despite his good looks and silver tongue, puts a swift end to the young man’s political career.  His comeuppance feels implausible in America in 2025. But “Garside’s Career” was first produced in England in 1914, and in any case ultimately winds up less a tale of political corruption than an unlikely love story. The play by Harold Brighouse (best known for Hobson’s Choice) is now getting its New York premiere 111 years later in a sturdily designed, well-performed production by – who else – the Mint Theater Company, which for 33 years has excavated such long-buried scripts.   This one would be hard to classify as a forgotten masterpiece, but it offers an opportunity for some wonderful character acting.

When we first meet him, Peter (Daniel Marconi) is a mechanic in Midlandton in the North of England who arrives home to announce to his mother and his sweetheart that he has just been awarded a B.A in engineering, first class. “I’ve beaten men I never hoped to equal.”

He is soon visited by a trio of local Labor Party organizers, one of whom is named Karl Marx Jones,  who recruit him to run for Parliament.  His mother, Mrs. Garside (Amelia White) is delighted. His fiancé Margaret (Madeline Seidman), a schoolteacher, is adamantly opposed, seeing it as a temptation that will lead to his ruin: “The itch to speak is like the itch to drink, except that it’s cheaper to talk yourself tipsy.” But he can’t resist: “You don’t know the glorious sensation of holding a crowd in the hollow of your hand, mastering it, doing what you like with it.” Margaret breaks off their engagement because of his devotion to public speaking, but as a fellow Socialist, she herself promises to speak in public on his behalf (Huh?)

Her public speaking gets her fired from her teaching job, by Lady Mottram (Melissa Maxwell) the head of the board of the school, at the aristocrat’s home, on the same day that she coincidentally invites Peter on behalf of her husband Sir Jasper Mottram, mayor of  Midlandton and Chairman of the Employers’ Federation (and thus Peter’s enemy.) The invitation is explained (lamely) as a way to keep Peter from campaigning in the streets that night. In her home, Peter meets Mottram’s two grown children, Freddie (Avery Whitted), who is a comic fop, and Gladys (Sara Haider) for whom Peter develops a crush.  

Six months later, Peter the new MP is ensconced in an elegant London flat, wearing fancy clothes with shiny shoes, ignoring his duties in Parliament to make speeches around the country for exorbitant fees, and avidly wooing Gladys Mottram, who seems to be about to be seduced – when the local Labor Party organizers arrive to confront him about his corruption, forcing him to resign.

In the final of the four Acts, Peter is dramatically self-pitying, when Margaret enters back into the picture, and true love resurrected.

What works best about “Garside’s Career” are the contrasting colorful characters and their animated exchanges edged with humor. There is the jealousy and rivalry that Amelia White as the uneducated Mrs. Garside exhibits towards Seidman’s Margaret, blaming her for insufficiently worshipping her son. There is the imperious way that Melissa Maxwell as Lady Mottram deals with Margaret, accusing her of publicly proclaiming “your loose morality.”

Margaret: You’ll pardon me. I’ve done nothing of the sort. 
Lady Mottram: I’m grievously misinformed if you’re not a self-confessed Socialist. 
Margaret: You spoke of loose morality. 
Lady Mottram: Same thing. 

Garside’s Career
Mint Theater at Theatre Row through March 15
Running time: Two hours and ten minutes, including intermission
Tickets: $39 – $99
Written by Harold Brighouse
Directed by Matt Dickson
Sets by Christopher & Justin Swader, costumes by Kindall Almond, lights by Yiyuan Li, sound by Carsen Joenk, props by Chris Fields, dialects and dramaturgy by Amy Stoller
Cast: Erik Gratton as Timson, Sara Haider as Gladys Mottram, Daniel Marconi as Peter Garside,
Melissa Maxwell as Lady Mottram, Paul Niebanck as Ned Applegarth, Michael Schantz as Karl Marx Jones, Madeline Seidman as Margaret Shawcross, Amelia White as Mrs. Garside, Avery Whitted as Freddie Mottram