Arthur Miller

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VOICE ONE:

I'm Barbara Klein.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Steve Ember with People in America in VOA Special
English. Today we tell about Arthur Miller. Many theater critics
believe he was one of the greatest American playwrights of the
twentieth century.

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VOICE ONE:

Several plays by Arthur Miller will probably be performed for
many years to come. That is because critics say Miller was able to
dramatize the emotional pain that average people suffer in their
daily lives.

A critic once described Miller as an activist for the common man.
He demonstrates this well in one of his most famous plays, "Death of
a Salesman." The main character is a man whose dreams of success in
business have died.

But Miller's interest in the average man did not stop him from
exploring major problems of society. In "The Crucible", for example,
he shows what happens when unreasonable dislike and fear cause
people to accuse innocent people of horrible crimes.

Some other of his best-known plays include "All My Sons", "A View
from the Bridge" and "After the Fall."

VOICE TWO:

Arthur Miller was born in New York City in nineteen fifteen. He
died in two thousand five at his home in Roxbury, Connecticut. For
sixty years, he created one dramatic work after another. Miller won
many awards for his plays. Among them were a Pulitzer Prize, New
York Drama Critics' Circle prizes and Tony awards. In nineteen
eighty-four, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in
Washington, D.C. honored him for his lifetime work in drama.

VOICE TWO (CONT):

Miller also created stories for movies. For example, he wrote
"The Misfits" for actress Marilyn Monroe. Miller's television drama,
"Playing for Time", told of an orchestra of prisoners at the Nazi
death camp, Auschwitz, during World War Two. Miller was also a
political activist for human rights. But it was drama performed in
the theater that Miller loved most.

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VOICE ONE:

Arthur Miller grew up in New York. His father, Isidore Miller,
manufactured clothing and operated a store. But the father lost his
money in the great economic Depression in the nineteen thirties. The
family had to move from a costly apartment in Manhattan to a small
house in Brooklyn.

During the Depression, Arthur worked at many jobs to earn money
for college. In nineteen thirty-four, he began studying English at
the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Miller won an award for
writing plays while at school.

VOICE TWO:

Miller returned home to New York after completing his studies. He
married his college girlfriend, Mary Slattery. They had two children
before later ending their marriage.

In nineteen forty-four, Arthur Miller's first major play was
performed on Broadway. It was called "The Man Who Had All the Luck."
However, the play did not bring him good luck. It had only four
performances. But his second Broadway play, "All My Sons", was a
major success It won several awards in nineteen forty-seven.

"All My Sons" tells of a manufacturer who produces faulty parts
for airplanes used in World War Two. One of his sons dies as the
result of the father's crime. In the play, Miller examines the
relationship between the pressure to succeed and personal
responsibility.

VOICE ONE:

Miller's great play, "Death of a Salesman", opened on Broadway in
nineteen forty-nine. He was thirty-three years old when he wrote it.
"Death of a Salesman" questions the pressures in American society
for people to gain financial success. The play also continues his
exploration of the relationships between fathers and sons.

The central character in "Death of a Salesman" is sixty-year-old
Willy Loman. The action opens on the last day of Willy's life. He
has been dismissed from his job as a traveling salesman. He also
recognizes that he has failed as a father. Willy thinks about
killing himself.

Willy's wife Linda understands that he is deeply and dangerously
sad. But their son Biff criticizes his father's strange actions. She
answers with some of the most famous words in the American theater:

((CUT ONE: DEATH OF A SALESMAN IN SPECIAL ENGLISH))

LINDA: "I don't say he's a great man. Willy Loman never made a
lot of money. His name was never in the papers. But he's a human
being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must
be paid. He's not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old
dog. Attention, attention must be finally paid to such a person. You
called him crazy…"

BIFF:"I didn't mean…"

LINDA:"No, a lot of people think he's lost his – balance. But you
don't have to be very smart to know what his trouble is. The man is
exhausted."

VOICE TWO:

Linda knows that Willy is extremely tired. He is tired of living.
He kills himself before the play is over. Linda talks to Willy at
his burial place:

((CUT TWO: DEATH OF A SALESMAN IN SPECIAL ENGLISH))

"I search and search and I search, and I can't understand it.
Willy, I made the last payment on the house today. Today, dear. And
there'll be nobody home…"

VOICE ONE:

"Death of a Salesman" had a big influence on the American public.
Many people saw their own lives in Willy Loman, the victim of broken
dreams. Americans discussed the financial worries of businessmen who
were getting old. But Americans were not the only ones who
identified with the ideas in the play. It has been translated into
about thirty languages and performed around the world.

VOICE TWO:

Arthur Miller's criticisms of modern American life influenced
another of his most important works. "The Crucible" was first
produced in nineteen fifty-three. The nineteen fifties were a time
of extreme fear of Communism in the United States. Sometimes this
fear was unreasonable.

Miller examined this difficult period in American history by
setting his play at another difficult time. "The Crucible" takes
place in the seventeenth century. He based his play on trials that
took place in Salem, Massachusetts. Young women in the play accuse
people they dislike of being evil witches. The innocent victims are
put on trial and executed. The story shows the tragic results of
uncontrolled suspicion and fear. "The Crucible" has been produced
more than any of Miller's plays, both in America and around the
world.

VOICE ONE:

Like the victims in "The Crucible," the playwright himself became
the object of suspicion. In nineteen fifty-six, a committee of the
United States Congress ordered him to give evidence. In the nineteen
forties, he had attended several meetings for writers organized by
the Communist Party. The Congressional committee wanted the names of
other people who attended Communist meetings.

Arthur Miller said he was not a Communist. But he would not give
the committee any names. He was found guilty of disobeying Congress.
Later, however, a court canceled that judgment. Miller was lucky.
Some people who would not answer questions before Congress served
time in prison.

VOICE TWO:

Something else lucky happened to the playwright in nineteen
fifty-six. Miller married the beautiful Hollywood actress Marilyn
Monroe. But their marriage was troubled. Monroe had emotional
problems. They had little privacy because the media followed the
famous couple everywhere.

Miller wrote the nineteen sixty-one movie "The Misfits" for his
wife. The movie explored the modern Wild West through the lives of
three troubled people. Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe ended their
marriage soon after the movie was completed. A year later, Monroe
died of a drug overdose.

Miller wrote another play, "After the Fall," in nineteen
sixty-four. Critics said it was the play most about his own life.
They criticized him for portraying the wife of the main character as
a woman who is dependent on drugs and kills herself. They said the
character was based on Marilyn Monroe. But Miller denied this.

VOICE ONE:

Miller married for a third time in nineteen sixty-two. He and his
wife Inge Morath, a well-known photographer, had one daughter.
Morath died in two thousand two. Miller once said that even after he
and Inge had been married almost forty years, people still asked him
about Marilyn Monroe.

VOICE TWO:

Arthur Miller also wrote short stories and a book about his life
called "Timebends: A Life." He once wrote that when he was young he
imagined that with the possible exception of a doctor saving a life,
"writing a worthy play was the most important thing a human being
could do." Theater owners on Broadway agreed. On the day after he
died, the lights of Broadway theaters darkened for a minute in honor
of Arthur Miller.

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VOICE ONE:

This program was written by Jerilyn Watson. It was produced by
Lawan Davis. I'm Barbara Klein.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Steve Ember. Sarah Long and Rich Kleinfeldt were the
characters from "Death of a Salesman." Join us again for next week
for another PEOPLE IN AMERICA in VOA Special English.

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