All My Sons

by Arthur Miller

seen by live streaming from the Old Vic on 14 May 2019

Jeremy Herrin directs Bill Pullman as Joe Keller, Sally Field as his wife Kate, Colin Morgan as his son Chris and Jenna Coleman as Ann Deever, the daughter of Joe's disgraced foreman Steve and prospective wife of Chris in a Headlong co-production with the Old Vic of Arthur Miller's 1947 play about the corrosive effect of capitalism on small-town lives.

Joe, Kate and Chris live still in the suburban house where Chris and his brother Larry (now missing in action from the war, presumed dead by all except Kate) grew up. Ann and her mother and brother George (Oliver Johnstone) left the neighbouring house after Steve was convicted for sending faulty cylinders to the Air Force during the war, which caused the deaths of at least 21 pilots. Joe himself spent some time on jail, but was exonerated and released when the court accepted testimony that he was not involved in the deception.

The Price

by Arthur Miller

seen at Wyndhams Theatre on 6 March 2019

Jonathan Church directs Brendan Coyle and Adrian Lukis as two brothers, Vincent and Walter, with Sarah Stewart as Vincent's wife Esther and David Suchet as Gregory Solomon, an elderly second-hand furniture dealer, in a fiftieth anniversary production of Arthur Miller's play about the costs and misunderstandings of filial loyalty played out as the brothers meet after sixteen years to dispose of their father's property.

In an astonishing set designed by Simon Higlett to represent a lifetime's clutter, with chairs, desks and other bric-a-brac climbing surrealistically angled walls almost to hang from the ceiling, Vincent, a policeman nearing his retirement,  has returned to his father's apartment many years after the latter's death to dispose of all the moveables since the building is about to be demolished. This being an Arthur Miller play, the event is fraught with complex memories and resentments, revealed partly through the tense discussion with his wife when she arrives, when it becomes clear that Walter, the successful doctor brother, has been estranged from Vincent for many years and has not answered calls to help deal with this current crisis.

The Crucible

by Arthur Miller

seen at the Walter Kerr Theatre, New York, on 25 May 2016

Directed by Ivo van Hove, with an original score by Philip Glass, the production features Ben Whishaw as John Proctor, Sophie Okonedo as Elizabeth Proctor, Saoirse Ronan as Abigail Williams, Bill Camp as Reverend John Hale and Ciarán Hinds as Deputy Governor Danforth.

The play, a presentation of the 17th century Salem witch trials widely seen as a criticism of the McCarthy-era prosecutions of communists, is here set in a fairly modern schoolroom with neon lights, which serves for all the settings specified by Miller's text (set and lights by Jan Versweyweld). The actors are dressed in old-fashioned but recognisably contemporary clothes, which interestingly serves to underscore the early modern formality of their speech patterns.

Death of a Salesman

by Arthur Miller

seen at the Duke of Yorks Theatre on 4 July 2015

The play, directed by Gregory Doran, and designed by Stephen Brimson Lewis, stars Anthony Sher as Willy Loman, Harriet Walter as Linda, Alex Hassell as Biff, Sam Marks as Happy and Guy Paul as Ben. It is an RSC transfer from Stratford.

The set mainly shows the Loman household, with bedroom and dining room adjoining (the kitchen and bathroom notionally behind), and the boys' bedroom in an attic space above. All around, the apartment blocks are represented as flat walls encroaching on the garden (as Willy several times complains); but at moments of stress they become mere frames of netting when lit from behind. Other scenes such as Willy's hotel room when travelling, the office and a restaurant, are played in front of the house space. This is an extremely effective way of visualising the claustrophobic nature of Willy's world.

A View from the Bridge

by Arthur Miller

seen at Wyndhams Theatre on 27 March 2015

The play, transferred from the Young Vic, is directed by Ivo van Hove with Mark Strong as Eddie Carbone, Nicola Walker as his wife Beatrice, Phoebe Fox as his niece Catherine, Luke Norris as her fiance Rodolpho, Emun Elliott as Rodolpho's brother Marco, and Michael Gould as the lawyer Alfieri.

Miller's tense drama from 1955, revised in 1956, is here stripped of almost all realistic reference to reveal its strong affiliation with Greek tragedy. The set is a bare space made almost like a shallow pit through being surrounded on all four sides by a low-level boundary which can be used as benches or to signify the enclosing walls of a room. At the back is a wall with a single entrance cut in its centre leading to a black space behind.