Arthur Miller's drama is a classic tale of a house divided,or in this case, the contents of an old house that has to be cleared. The Franz brothers have ceased to communicate since Victor sacrificed his college education to nurse their ailing father while Walter left them to it and went on to build a lucrative surgical career. Between them stands the sagacious figure of Solomon, a 90-year-old Russian-Jewish junk merchant, whose job is to broker custody of the antiquated rowing oar and a broken harp.
Of course, The Price is not really about money. As Victor's deeply frustrated wife (poignantly played by Susan Sylvester) points out, "there is such a thing as a moral debt," and the action centres on irreconcilable grievances about the value of self-sacrifice in a society which pits every person for themselves. As Victor, Tom Mannion gives a bewildered account of a lowly police officer who values public service above private gain; Colin Stinton's Walter seems magnificently secure in the belief that the only thing an opportunist requires in life is an opportunity.
The first time David Thacker directed the Price, at the Young Vic 21 years ago, he had the intimidating advantage of Arthur Miller sitting in the rehearsal room alongside him. He now delivers this fiscal parable with the authority of a preacher with a direct line to God. It is crowned by a peerless comic performance from Kenneth Alan Taylor as the antiquated dealer with outrageous claims to be a former acrobat: "You never heard of the Five Solomons?" he boasts. "I was the one on the bottom." It sounds like wishful thinking, though the balance Thacker achieves here is priceless.
