Symposium on The Price

Abstract

The struggle between two brothers, whether it be physical or emotional, is a tale long told in literature: perhaps an archetype of Western society rooted in the biblical narrative of Cain and Abel. That ur-story has been told in many ways since, but its theme of male sibling rivalry seems to transcend the ages. Arthur Miller is well known as a playwright who frequently dramatized the conflicts of father, sons, and brothers, as in All My Sons (1947) and Death of a Salesman (1949). He would even tackle the story of Cain and Abel itself in his little-known play The Creation of the World and Other Business (1972), and its musical version, Up From Paradise (1974). But perhaps in no other play in Miller's canon is the clash between brothers so dominant as in The Price.The long-awaited revival of Miller's second-longest-running Broadway show (it first ran for 429 productions in 1968 through to 1969) arrived with great fanfare because the star-studded cast included veteran stage actress Jessica Hecht as Esther Franz, Mark Ruffalo as Victor Franz, Tony Shalhoub as Walter Franz, and television and film star Danny DeVito as the furniture appraiser Gregory Solomon, in his Broadway debut.Central to The Price is the unresolved, decades-long conflict between the Franz brothers over the care of their father (now dead for sixteen years), who haunts their minds and the stage itself in the visible presence of his furniture, which Victor is selling as the building in which it is stored is being sold. Victor resents his wealthy brother's earlier abandonment of them, but has called to let his brother know he is selling the furniture. The diminutive DeVito uncorked an outsize humor never before depicted in the almost ninety-year-old appraiser, and Hecht as Esther achieved a fine balance between depicting her own desires and those she has for her relationship with her husband. However, these characters are secondary to the pivotal roles of Victor and Walter. Because the play dramatizes their long-awaited confrontation, the interaction between the two brothers is crucial to any production. In act 1 Ruffalo gives a thoroughly convincing performance of his frustrations with his current life, and his regrets over the past. This background prepares the audience for the dramatic entrance of Walter at the end of the act, and the anticipation of the brothers' confrontation in act 2.It felt that Tony Shalhoub's depiction of Walter, however effective in making the pretentious Walter a real contrast to the down-to-earth Victor, falls short in eliciting sympathy for the character. The major tension in act 2 arises from Victor's repeated questions to Walter on why he did not answer Victor's outreach in the past. When Victor inquires as to why his brother did not call him back after he had tried for so long to get in touch with him, Walter responds: “I was quite sick. I was hospitalized … I broke down … I was out of commission for nearly three years.” This crucial admittance for Walter is a turning point for the audience's judgment of him. However, Shalhoub is unconvincing in his confession, delivering his lines too quickly, rushed and under his breath. This consequently takes away from the sincerity of what Walter just shared. More importantly, this limits the audience's understanding of the gravity of Walter's past emotional struggles and his ability to come to terms with himself, and ultimately with his brother. Crucially, in this production, the audience does not see Walter in a new light—the possibility that he, perhaps, never purposely intended to avoid his brother, does not seem an option.However, later in act 2 during Walter and Victor's confrontation over the money their father had kept secret, Shalhoub and Ruffalo skillfully fence each other into a draw, which sets up what could be a final separation between them at play's end. This closing scene delivers the production up to Miller's possible intent to perpetuate a tale as old as the Bible, depicting a conclusion in which two struggling brothers finally end their rivalry.