We are both very keen on Arthur Miller and thought we would probably enjoy one of his rarely performed early works.
We went to the second preview of this production, so possibly didn’t get it at its absolute best.
While we enjoyed the play and production, with some of its parable qualities reminding us of great Miller plays, I would suggest that the play is not a great Miller play and the production was not one of the Donmar’s greatest productions. The acting was superb, as we pretty much expect at the Donmar, the cast mostly unfamiliar folk to us.
Here is a link to the excellent Donmar downloadable “Study Guide” resource for this production.
The critics were somewhat divided in their opinions, even individually in some cases:
- our friend Michael Billington in the Guardian gave the play/production high marks while acknowledging its limitations;
- Paul Taylor in the Independent seems to admire the revival more than the play;
- Karen Fricker on Variety.com loved the play and the production; helpfully setting out the cast and crew at the end of her piece too;
- Charles Spencer really liked the play and production too.
There’s a good Wikipedia piece about the play – here – which mentions the Donmar revival and others besides. It also provides a bit more analysis about the play.
We’re very fussy when it comes to the Donmar these days, as we find that Covent Garden location so awkward, but on balance we certainly felt that this was a worthwhile trip.