When you sit down for an Arthur Miller play, you know what to expect. Typically, there is a flawed male protagonist, a desperate wife and a bitterly complex familial relationship all being unpacked with a brutal rawness, told so realistically yet so lyrically by Miller’s evocative dialogue. These components all make an appearance in The Price, with this extraordinary revival of one of Miller’s lesser-known works bringing to the stage a terrific force.
Set in a gloomy, dusty, upstairs room where their bankrupt father spent the last years of his life, The Price explores the strained relationship between police sergeant Victor Franz (Elliot Cowan) and his estranged brother Walter (John Hopkins), a successful and wealthy doctor. The pair meet at the culmination of Act One, where, up until this point, Victor has been unable to get in touch with Walter, and is preparing for the sale of his father’s possessions to wily octogenarian Gregory Solomon (a superb Henry Goodman), an antiques dealer and appraiser who, much like the brothers, is reconciling with the passing of time.
Jon Bausor’s dimly lit, filled-to-the-brim set design is a gorgeous backdrop to explore Miller’s play. The room, full of mementoes and family relics, represents the past for both brothers: the family life they once had and the blissful, money-soaked past that their father lost in The Great Depression. It is a stunning design, and one that feels both claustrophobic and spacious, forcing the pair together in moments of anger and frustration, while also offering pockets of space and depth, providing areas for escape too. Miller’s two-act play is essentially a collection of lengthy duologues as the characters face up to their own actions, sacrifices, and consequences, with Bausor’s design beautifully representing a past that no one seems willing to hold on to or let go of.
Miller’s play centres upon Victor, whose aspirations to become a scientist were cut short by a lack of funding and a necessity to care for an ailing father, physically fine but mentally scarred by losing his wealth and his identity, after the 1929 Wall Street Crash. This, clearly inspired by Miller’s own experiences with his father’s financial decline, is the pivotal focus of the play, where Victor struggles to accept his brother’s successes, a life he sees as one without sacrifice, whereas his has been far more restricted. This is compounded by wife Esther (a subtle, powerful, Faye Castelow), who is dismissive of Victor’s life on the beat, and longing for something better for her and her husband.
As Victor, Cowan succeeds greatly in crafting a man who sees his professional sacrifices as a moral duty, a result of preserving his father’s reputation, and one that supersedes his own aspirations. Cowan gradually reveals Victor’s anguish about a life potentially wasted by his and others’ choices, yet this Miller protagonist is not like Willy Loman or John Proctor. Victor is not a totally flawed man, and it is much clearer here how his ‘good’ is corrupted, ignored or derided by others, albeit with a stubbornness which restricts him. It is a compelling portrayal, one that, when it eventually explodes in Act Two, it does so with an utterly captivating and terrifically controlled fury.
Goodman’s Gregory, however, initially provides great comic relief, bumbling and mumbling across the space and spinning Victor with great tales of his life, seemingly in order to deflect making a financial offer and instead looking for a human connection at a point in his life where all other relationships have passed him by. It is a very funny performance, with Goodman looking at ease, whether darting around the room auditing the furniture, relaxing in a plush chair regaling stories or, in one particularly absurd moment, chomping on a boiled egg with glorious glee. Goodman presents Gregory with superb poise, balancing his outlandish reactions and witty comebacks with a neat insecurity that arrives now and again. His batty nature seems to disguise something else, another example of a proud man using deflective tactics to obscure the truth.
Meanwhile, Hopkins is effective as the brash Walter, a reminder to Victor of his failings and lack of financial success. The pair have a great chemistry in the back and forth of their interactions, interacting in a way which constantly revolves and circles with little progression, but in a way that absorbs. Castelow, too, as Esther, succeeds in at first portraying a desperate wife wanting more, yet this becomes something much more empathetic by the piece’s moving close.
Jonathan Munby’s direction pulls together four very strong performers in a manner which enables each to luxuriate in their strengths, resulting in a captivating and engrossing production. It is a tightly put-together piece and one that, while the characters are filled with regret, the audience certainly does not rue watching it. A stark reminder of the brutality of time passing, the impact of eroding ambition and the devastation of aspirations lost and sacrificed in the face of life’s harsh reality.
