Posted on 02/13/2005 10:44:10 AM PST by rcocean
Miller's weaknesses as a dramatist are also latent in this play. I hope I never have to sit through Death of a Salesman again, not because it's depressing and bleak but because it's unrelieved and unchallenging. As a dramatist, Miller not only has no sense of humor, he also fails to grasp how changes in tone and texture can be used to make tragedy tolerable. Here, as in his other plays, he seems terrified that someone might accuse him of
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.msn.com ...
Good critique. Thanks for posting.
Let it be passed in silence -"aut bene, aut nihil".
O'Neil and Williams are both better American playwrights.
Oooooooh.
Love it when the literati gets stung by one of their own.
Good review. On a related note to the piece's discussion of "Chicago style," I had the same problem with the Steppenwolf production of Hedda Gabler...all the unrelieved bleakness with no alternate tone. I left during intermission for a badly needed drink.
I have never been impressed with Arthur Miller's work. Clifford Odetts was WAY better with dialougue, despite being a "fellow traveler."
It's shocking to me how many on FR think Miller was a great man. Just shocking.
Tennessee Williams always reminded me of Percy Dovetonsils, my favorite Ernie Kovacs character:
Photo:
http://vidiot.textamerica.com/?r=1937298
Percy's poetry:
ODE TO A HOUSEFLY
Philosophical Ruminations on a Beastie in the Booze
Oh, hail to thee, tiny insect so small,
Swimming around in my bourbon highball.
Back-stroking, breast-stroking, movement of wing,
Now up on the ice cube, poor cold little thing.
If you stay there too long, you'll find with remorse,
Your ankles will numb and your buzz will get hoarse.
Catching cold is unpleasant for all little flies,
Bloodshot is gruesome for multiprism eyes.
Some people hate flies, take my old Cousin Sam,
He gets in a snit when you sit in his jam.
I've seen sister Sally turn red as a beet
When you walk on her nose with your six sticky feet.
When you walk on the ceiling, your brow seems to frown,
Does blood go to your head, when you stand upside down?
My optometrist friend, a dear boy named Rex,
Makes bifocals for flies - he calls them fly specs.
Now you're coughing because you are so full of trouble,
Or is it the bourbon that's making you bubble?
You should get off the ice, the temperature's minus,
You'll get frost in your navel and a wee touch of sinus.
Sorry, should be:
I've NEVER understood it, but she had issues.
Finally! Arthur Miller was the most overrated playwright of the 20th Century, and couldn't shine the shoes of O'Neill or Williams. He was clever at courting the society set, who adored him, and built his celebrity despite his weak skills.
"He has wonderful 15 minutes and dreadful hours."
This is pretty much what I said on the obituary post. Miller was blown way out of proportion because he was an important fellow traveler who did much to construct the myth connecting McCarthyism to the Salem witchcraft trials. He also regularly defended the Hollywood 5 and helped build the myth of a demonic and oppressive right--which has never existed in this country.
His best play, "Death of a Salesman," characterizes an age. It's basic argument is that life is bleak and meaningless, which leads on to postmodernist nihilism.
Eugene O'Neill and Tennessee Williams were also deeply flawed, but they were far greater playwrights nonetheless.
The theater in America has been going downhill for a hundred years, so compared to what's on Broadway today Miller looks very good. But that's only because we are looking up at him from a deep pit, which he helped dig.
LOL! Thanks for a reminder of what a genius Kovacs was.
Kovacs, Stan Freberg, and early Steve Allen... Forget Miller, O'Neill, or Williams!
Freberg, among his many other accoplishments, nailed political correctness in "Elderly Man River" decades before the concept even had a name!
Stan on "Elderly Man River" from an interview with The Onion in '99:
SF: Yes, "Elderly Man River." Very good. Gee, you are a fan. The wonder of that song is that the censor at CBS Radio didn't even realize I was putting him on. [In "Elderly Man River," Freberg sings "Old Man River," but is interrupted by a CBS censor who instructs him to clean up the language. --ed.] He was only concerned that Jerome Kern's family didn't sue us for screwing around with the lyrics of "Old Man River," changing it to "Elderly Man River. "He doesn't plant cotting / and those that plant them are soon forgotting." That's my favorite line. A guy at CBS Radio was always saying things like, "That family of acrobats you have on the show, the Zazalophs... What is that, Polish or something?" I said, "Probably, I don't know. We don't get into their ethnic background. The idea of having acrobats on radio is stupid enough." And he said, "Change their names to Jones or Smith. We don't want to offend any particular groups. So when I asked the man, Zazaloph, "What nationality is that, Czechoslovakian? Polish?" He said, "No, Swiss. This way we don't offend anyone." That's how we dealt with political correctness in 1957.
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