The Price
by Arthur Miller
Director’s Note
“… with used furniture you cannot be emotional.”… but The Price is a piece about the price of used furniture and the price of one’s decisions.
The Price is one of Miller’s most under-recognized and least appreciated works. It opened on Broadway in 1968 where it enjoyed 429 performances. The American Dream – the notion that, with a combination of hard work, tenacity, ingenuity and perhaps a little luck, anyone can reap the rewards of success – is a fixture in many of Arthur Miller’s plays. Whether it is Joe Keller in All My Sons, Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman, or the Franz brothers in The Price, each, according to Miller, “embraces the illusion of attaining the forever elusive, unquestionably mythic American Dream”… But what happens when the dream does indeed remain elusive? It’s a struggle Miller’s characters confront.
The Price suggests that ‘The American Dream’ always demands compromise. What, it asks, is the cost of those compromises, and are its rewards worth the sacrifices? I think that there are no proper answers to the questions of responsibility and loyalty raised in The Price – each brother is simply acting according to his own beliefs. The brothers may be seen as being on opposite sides … but it’s not a question of positive or negative, but rather that each carries a price. Responsibility always does – both in the accepting and in the shirking.
Roger Holland
The Price is one of Miller’s most under-recognized and least appreciated works. It opened on Broadway in 1968 where it enjoyed 429 performances. The American Dream – the notion that, with a combination of hard work, tenacity, ingenuity and perhaps a little luck, anyone can reap the rewards of success – is a fixture in many of Arthur Miller’s plays. Whether it is Joe Keller in All My Sons, Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman, or the Franz brothers in The Price, each, according to Miller, “embraces the illusion of attaining the forever elusive, unquestionably mythic American Dream”… But what happens when the dream does indeed remain elusive? It’s a struggle Miller’s characters confront.
The Price suggests that ‘The American Dream’ always demands compromise. What, it asks, is the cost of those compromises, and are its rewards worth the sacrifices? I think that there are no proper answers to the questions of responsibility and loyalty raised in The Price – each brother is simply acting according to his own beliefs. The brothers may be seen as being on opposite sides … but it’s not a question of positive or negative, but rather that each carries a price. Responsibility always does – both in the accepting and in the shirking.
Roger Holland
Cast & Crew
Cast
Victor Franz …Phil Clegg
Esther Franz… June Holmes
Gregory Solomon …John Gillespie
Walter Franz… Andrew Wilson
Crew
Director Roger Holland
Set design Roger Holland, Ken Wright
Set construction Reg Guerin, Terry Foley, Tony Glynn
Stage manager Ann Tunnicliffe
Lighting design & operation David Plowright
Sound design & operation Sam Winterbottam,
Steve Hendren
Costume Edwina Rigby, the cast
Props Anne Wright
Prompt Patricia Redshaw, Jill Woods
P.A. June Holme
Set design Roger Holland, Ken Wright
Set construction Reg Guerin, Terry Foley, Tony Glynn
Stage manager Ann Tunnicliffe
Lighting design & operation David Plowright
Sound design & operation Sam Winterbottam,
Steve Hendren
Costume Edwina Rigby, the cast
Props Anne Wright
Prompt Patricia Redshaw, Jill Woods
P.A. June Holme
