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Well Worth The Price

by christopher grobe | Nov 6, 2007 1:16 pm

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Posted to: Arts

price153.jpgThe Death of a Salesman may be a “modern classic”.  The Crucible may appear on every high school English syllabus in America.  But The Price is arguably Arthur Miller’s best play—mixing in perfect proportion Miller’s fierce moral intellect, his knack for vivid characterization, his rich yet naturalistic dialogue, and his whimsical sense of humor. The production of the play running through Nov. 18 at the Long Wharf Theatre is itself truly superlative.

The Price belongs to an all-too-rare breed; it is an American problem play, and a classic to boot.  The situation is this: Victor Franz (Marco Barricelli), 16 years after his father’s death, is finally preparing to sell a stash of antique furniture, the last vestige of his family’s prosperous pre-Depression life.  He has tried to notify his estranged brother, Walter (Jeff McCarthy), but Walter has so far refused or neglected to return Victor’s calls.  The sale must go forward, not only because Victor’s wife, Esther (Kate Forbes) craves seed money for a new life, but also because the building housing the furniture is scheduled for demolition.

Throw into the mix an eccentric, 90-year-old appraiser (David Margulies) looking to relaunch his career (plus a tangled knot of family mysteries), and you have more than enough threads for an intricate tapestry of a play.

As the furniture appraiser, Gregory Solomon, asserts early in the play, “The price of used furniture is just a viewpoint.”  In a way, the entire play is a negotiation—but not so much a negotiation over the price of the furniture as struggle between the characters’ viewpoints on the furniture and, in the case of the two brothers, on the story of their shared past.  Miller layers memories of this past on the furniture like so many coats of paint.

For each character, the furniture represents a determining factor in a personal narrative.  For Gregory, it offers a chance to breathe life into his waning years; for Victor, each piece is coated in bittersweet and downright painful memories; for Walter, it represents a guilty burden; and for Esther, it signifies a new start, an escape from a life where “we never were anything; we were always about to be.”

In presenting each character’s larger stake in the furniture, Miller dictates neither our sympathies nor our values; no character is perfect, and no viewpoint is unassailable.  It is the kind of play that will leave you yearning for another two-and-a-half hours’ time with the characters or, more realistically, for a cup of coffee and a long chat with your play-going companion.

This is not merely a cerebral drama of ideas, though: each character’s ideology comes complete with visceral, emotional connotations.  Just watch how any one of director Gordon Edelstein’s captivating actors touches the furniture strewn across the stage.  In each touch, the characters reveal their deep emotional investment in each particular piece.  For, Miller is concerned more with the price as measured in nostalgia for the past and hopes for the future than with the market-value of this heap of sturdy movables.

In addition to top-notch acting and a superlative script, this production boasts impeccable design.  Jessica Ford’s costumes look lived-in but also function as clear symbols of the temperament and social class of each character.  Eugene Lee’s set, a cavernous room filled to bursting with precariously stacked furniture, offers the cast a kind of labyrinth to negotiate together—sometimes forcing them into uncomfortable proximity, sometimes holding them firmly apart.

Gordon Edelstein cobbles all of these elements together into a cohesive and enrapturing production.  Catch it while you can, because you simply can’t afford to miss The Price.

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