The impromptu Arthur Miller festival – initiated by the transfer of Jonathan Church’s superb revival of The Price to Wyndham’s theatre – continues with a rare sighting of this panoramic 1980 play about America during the Great Depression. Described as “a vaudeville”, it shows how the nation’s built-in optimism came up against economic reality and, in a production by Rachel Chavkin, who directed Hadestown, it has an appropriately epic sweep.
I’m less sure about her decision to cast the Brooklyn Baum family, who are at the centre of the action and closely modelled on Miller’s own, with three different sets of actors.
The aim is to heighten the story’s timelessness and reflect the nation’s diversity: fine in theory but the effect, paradoxically, is to shift the focus away from the family. The real strength of the production lies in individual scenes that give vivid snapshots of 1930s America.
In one of the best, a black Mississippi cafe owner, ruthlessly exploited by a local sheriff, wanly remarks: “The main thing about the Depression is that it finally hit the white people.” Another episode shows how a group of applicants for poor relief are turned from fractious competitors into a foot-stamping throng by a leftwing militant. The play, which combines the texture of despair with a residual hope epitomised in the line “a country can’t just die”, shows just how much the 30s shaped Miller’s artistic imagination.
In a 20-strong ensemble there are striking contributions from Clarke Peters as the story’s guileful narrator, Golda Rosheuvel as a fierce-willed agitator, Ewan Wardrop as a corporate boss tap-dancing his way to oblivion and Abdul Salis as a rueful southern cafe proprietor. Under Jim Henson’s musical direction, the songs provide a cheerful counterpoint to the bleak action, and Ann Yee’s choreography is beautifully disciplined without lapsing into the machine-like impersonality of big musicals. The play is as broad as it’s long – which is a good three hours – but, while it’s not one of Miller’s greatest, it shows his enduring capacity to capture the state of a troubled nation.
• At the Old Vic, London, until 30 March.
