The life of the playwright behind 鈥楧eath of a Salesman鈥�
John Lahr鈥檚 biography of Arthur Miller opens with a riveting chapter on the creation and the electric 1949 debut of the playwright鈥檚 masterwork, 鈥淒eath of a Salesman.鈥� Lahr calls the play鈥檚 impact on American theater 鈥渟eismic.鈥� But at the first performance, when the curtain came down, the audience sat in stunned silence, 鈥渓ike a funeral,鈥� Miller recalled. 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 know whether the show was dead or alive.鈥� Finally, someone thought to applaud, and then the house came apart.鈥澛�
From there, the sharp, insightful 鈥淎rthur Miller: American Witness,鈥� part of Yale University Press鈥� Jewish Lives series, goes back to the beginning, tracing the twists of Miller鈥檚 New York City childhood. Born in 1915, the playwright spent his early years in privilege in a Harlem townhouse until his business owner father, a whiz with numbers who couldn鈥檛 read or write, lost everything in the Depression and relocated the family to greatly reduced circumstances in Brooklyn. Lahr calls the elder Miller鈥檚 downfall the defining trauma of Miller鈥檚 life, describing what the author calls the 鈥渉eartbreaking and shocking鈥� moment when the formerly prosperous patriarch asked his teenage son for a quarter for the subway.
Drama critic Lahr, a longtime New Yorker contributor who鈥檚 written biographies of Tennessee Williams and Frank Sinatra, among others, is equally adept at narrating Miller鈥檚 eventful life story and interpreting the canonical works that sprang from it. The playwright frequently mined his own past for subject matter: Lahr quotes friend and collaborator Elia Kazan, who directed Miller鈥檚 鈥淪alesman,鈥� 鈥淎ll My Sons,鈥� and 鈥淎fter the Fall,鈥� as saying, 鈥淎rt was not a writer who made up stories. His material had to be experienced; he reported on his inner condition.鈥澛�
鈥淪alesman,鈥� whose tragic protagonist Willy Loman represents, in Lahr鈥檚 words, 鈥渢he aspiration and the desperation of American life,鈥� was inspired in part by a salesman uncle of Miller鈥檚 who took his own life. 鈥淭he Crucible,鈥� the 1953 play that dramatizes the Salem witch trials of 1692, grew out of Miller鈥檚 anguish over McCarthyism. (Kazan, a one time member of the Communist Party, famously named names in his testimony before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, resulting in a rupture in the relationship between the two men; Miller, on the other hand, was a hero to the left for his principled testimony, neither naming names nor pleading the Fifth as many prominent witnesses had.) 鈥淎fter the Fall鈥� was a thinly veiled interpretation of Miller鈥檚 disastrous five-year marriage to Marilyn Monroe.聽
The success of 鈥淪alesman鈥� had made Miller famous as a public intellectual, but his romance with the movie star made him an international celebrity. 鈥淎fter the Fall,鈥� which premiered in 1964, a year and a half after Monroe鈥檚 death, was panned by critics, who dubbed it voyeuristic and distasteful. 鈥淢iller, who had refused to name names to HUAC, now stood accused of informing on Monroe,鈥� Lahr writes.
With time, the author notes, 鈥渙nce the memory of both Miller and Monroe had dimmed in the collective unconscious,鈥� the play came to be regarded more generously. Similarly, 鈥淭he Crucible,鈥� whose original Broadway run lasted only 197 performances, has seen its reputation improve, as the years create distance from the historical events that inspired it. Its early critics, Lahr notes, were unable to see 鈥渂eyond its connection to the Red Scare to its deeper meanings.鈥澛�
At roughly 200 pages, 鈥淎rthur Miller: American Witness鈥� is a slender volume. Miller鈥檚 parents, whose influence looms so large in the early chapters, are hardly mentioned later in the book, although the lifelong friction with his older brother, Kermit, is more fully rendered. In addition, we learn little about Miller, who died in 2005, as a father himself (Monroe was the second of his three wives, and he had four children).
In Lahr鈥檚 hands, however, the plays come alive. While the shattering story of Willy Loman has become well-worn over the decades 鈥� 鈥渢he show,鈥� Lahr notes, 鈥渋s staged somewhere in the world nearly every day of the year鈥� 鈥� a new and acclaimed Broadway revival featuring a cast of Black actors is proof of its continued relevance. While Miller鈥檚 critical reputation rose and fell throughout his lifetime, Lahr鈥檚 perceptive book makes a strong case for the enduring relevance of the playwright as well.
