The price
by Miller, Arthur frey50
Published by : Viking Press (New York) , 1968 Physical details: 116 p.| Item type | Current location | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 800 - 899 | 812.5 Mil (Browse shelf) | Available | 35189 |
In his newest work for the theater, Arthur Miller returns to a family situation, a meeting of two brothers--one a successful surgeon, the other an ordinary policeman--brought together after many years by the need to dispose of their parents' property. The confrontation leads them to examine the events and quality of their lives and finally to a dramatization of two attitudes toward existence. The play takes place in the soon-to-be-demolished family house, amid a clutter of evocative furniture. The policeman's wife is present, and an ancient dealer, brought in to set a price on the pieces, a wise and comic commentator and witness to the now affectionate, now furious dialogue of the brothers. Sympathy shifts from one side of the argument to the other, but in the author's words, one must "withhold judgment in favor of presenting both men in all their humanity and from their own viewpoints. Actually, each has merely proved to the other what the other has known but dared not face. At the end, demanding of one another what was forfeited to time, each is left touching the structure of his life.