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 DEATH OF A PLAYWRIGHT
One of our best and bravest playwrights passed away a few days ago, so I‘d like to share a few words in celebration his lifetime of great work. I’m talking about Arthur Miller. First off he had a long life. Born in 1915, he passed away at 89 years of age, and some of America’s finest plays birthed from his pen. There’s a few things I share in common with Arthur Miller aside from being caught up in his work. We share the same last name, he went to college (University of Michigan) in my home state, and we write. Then there’s the other things most people don’t know (I bet)… He was married to Marylin Monroe for a time. (Sorry, Jack.) And wrote a film for her you might remember, called ‘The Misfits” directed by John Huston.
But enough of that.
You can’t talk about Arthur Miller, without talking about his works of great importance, that have stayed with theatre, and us, for over half a century (and most likely into the next…) Like all great works they are timeless themes that expose the truth of life no matter the age.
Consider what we have been going through in these first few years of the 21st Century alone and think upon these masterpieces… In ALL MY SONS (1947), he authored a drama about a small arms manufacturer who sold defective parts to the armed forces, and contributed to their demise during wartime. It was after all, the ear of World War II. One of his two sons finds out about the corruption. The father claims he had to do it to make money to care for his family. The son retorts, “There’s a universe outside and you’re responsible to it.” Consider that now in light of the UN and Haliburton scandals. The difference here is in reality we never seem to see the resolution (rarely) of anything, yet on stage, in ALL MY SONS, we see it end clearly in two suicides. The other son, an airforce pilot, who kills himself upon hearing of the scandal, and then the father upon learning of his son’s suicide.
Then of course, there’s the immortal DEATH OF A SALESMAN (1949). Rare is the American Nightmare spoken of in our media, though it be reality for far more people than the American Dream. And no character in history ever represented the full embodiment of the American Nightmare than Willy Loman. Miller’s pen here captured in this character the core American values—the pursuit of success and the maintainance of respect, to be loved and adored, and to provide, to keep one’s home—the vaules of the middle class. And so we have the perfect conditions for tragedy. That’s what Miller called Loman, in his own essay, “Tragedy and The Common Man.” For he did give us that, a common man, that most American’s know, more than 50 years later. And one can never forget the witch hunts of THE CRUCIBLE (1954), be it the Salem Witch Trials, The Hollywood Blacklisting anti-communism of McCarthy, or those wrongly persecuted under today’s Patriot Act of 2001. In his work, we see the drama of moral responsibility versus guilt. Timeless even now. If you can, go read them, and celebrate a life worth writing. I leave you now with his own words:
“In all my plays and books I try to take setting and dramatic situations from life which involve real questions of right and wrong. Then I set out, rather implacably and in most realistic situations I can find, the moral dilemma and try to point a real, though hard, path out. I don’t see how you can write anything decent without the question of right and wrong as the basis.”
This just in, as I was going through some of my Arthur Miller plays I came across “A View From The Bridge” which I haven’t read, so there’s no time like the present. In closing, I’d like to thank Mr. Miller for his great work and for the inspiration… I think it was, what… 8th grade when the play was read in some classroom in rural middle-class Michigan. I was left thinking I sure as hell don’t wanna be a salesman… but a writer on the other hand… now that’s an honest dream.
MDM
Editor’s Note: When I was younger I performed in “All My Son’s” in a semi-pro show in San Francisco. I played the kid next door “Bert.” Night after night, I would sit backstage and listen to the words over and over again. I was always taken by the lines in the scene where the son finally discovers his father sold faulty plane parts to the American Army, which killed many. His Dad tries to hug him and says “I did it for you, the whole shooting match was for you.” I think one of the ways that you can judge art, is that it hits you in a whole different way throughout your years. Those words of dialogue meant one thing to me when I was ten (“Don’t blame this one on me”), when I was nineteen (”capitalist pig!”) and now at thirty six (“I might do that to secure my son’s future”). Amen.
--Crackpot
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