Very few plays have been awaited with as much expectation as Arthur Miller’s After the Fall. Partly, the interest arose from the fact that it was the inaugural play of the most ambitious repertory venture ever tried in New York, the Lincoln Center repertory theater (a regular company doing plays on a rotating schedule). In part, it issued from this being Mr. Miller’s first drama in nine years and his reputation as a writer whose work relates to the central social issues of our day. Mostly though, since nothing whets interest like curiosity about the private lives of public individuals, it was because the play was known to be about Mr. Miller himself, and to deal among other things with his marriage to the film star and sex symbol, the late Marilyn Monroe.
Mr. Miller has disclaimed at prolix and ambiguous length any connection in his play between fiction and fact. He protests too much. After the Fall is aggressively autobiographical. But the point is of no consequence critically. It may be in bad taste for a man to tell us what went on in the privacy of his bedroom, and to blame a woman dead and defenseless for a marital bust-up, but it is not necessarily bad art. Strindberg, too, went digging into the disorder of his domestic experiences to find dramatic inspiration. So did O’Neill, though one can argue whether Long Day’s Journey Into Night is of durable value.
Comments