This is the second production in my unofficial 2019 Arthur Miller theatrical quintet, following The American Clock. Still to come are The Crucible, All My Sons, and Death of a Salesman.
It was also set to be an unofficial trio of actors who appeared in Downton Abbey, following Alys Always (Joanne Froggart) and Tartuffe (Kevin Doyle). But leading man Brendan Coyle is indisposed, so Sion Lloyd is on as Victor.
The Price is rarely revived – I saw the 2004 production in Leeds with Warren Mitchell as Solomon, and there is an excellent TV version from 1971 which was led by George C Scott as Victor.
But the play isn’t particularly well known – a pity, as it is a family drama, with comic interludes (David Suchet’s ancient dealer Solomon is beautifully judged) and an eventual final act into which Lloyd’s tour de force as the seething policeman clashes with his selfish and wealthy brother Walter (Adrian Lukis).
Victor’s wife (a spiky Sara Stewart, who displays little warmth) has always resented his missed opportunities, lack of education, scrimping and saving while their lives were on hold. Now it has been three years since Dad has died, and his cluttered attic, represented brilliantly by Simon Higglett’s set which literally fills the walls with furniture, is to be cleared, sold, and the house demolished.
The Price is a wordy and challenging play – Victor and Walter may be more like each other than they’d like to admit, and they are both complex and damaged characters. Jonathan Church’s direction of this 50th anniversary production gets to the heart of the matter.
Victor may feel crushed by lack of opportunity, but also lack of ambition – but it is the successful doctor Walter who has divorced, and who is recovering from a breakdown.
On the fringes of this brotherly discussion are the wife, the dealer, and the spirit of the dead dad, whose clutter both physical and financial, has stopped everyone moving on. Mum has been dead for years but her gowns are still carefully boxed. There’s a fencing sword, an oar, a harp.
I liked the way that music tops and tails the play, beginning with the vaudeville staple “Mr Gallagher and Mr Shean” (Solomon worked with them, in his youth, in a family of acrobats) and closing with a 1920s “laughing record”.
The Price closes on 27 April.
This looks so interesting, and love those two guys, just been watching Peter Pan Goes Wrong with the kids and David Suchet looks so different here!
He’s quite the chameleon. A few ywars ago he played Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest and was terrific in it!