The American Clock

Abstract

The American Clock is Arthur Miller's twenty-second play. It is, according to the publicity, “a mural for the theater” based on Studs Turkel's Hard Times, a book that illustrates the effects of the Great Depression on people's lives through a series of memoirs and interviews. The scenes do not all connect dramatically with each other, which seems to be why the word “mural” is used when describing the work. Recently produced by the Redtwist Theatre in Chicago, this is the second Miller play I have seen at this venue, the first being Broken Glass, several years ago.The theater is an interesting one, made up of two long, thin storefronts in Chicago's Edgewater District a few blocks away from Lake Michigan and an “L” station. One front is about twelve feet wide and thirty feet long with the stage along the side. The seats are three deep, with the back row raised up like bar stools. The back has an exit into the other storefront.All the action was staged along the sidewall, which was painted “brick.” It was variously a living room, a street corner, a welfare office, a union hall, and a piano bar. Stage designer Eric Luchen and lighting designer Katheryn Lesko effected these changes with ingenuity. The space is small, thin, and long, but they use the whole thing. Costumes were by Allison Smith, who proved to be an effective secondhand Rose.Of course the visual perspective of the audience also changes with each scene. Some scenes are played at one end, some at the other, and some in the middle. Thus, some members of the audience cannot clearly see significant parts of the action as the play progresses from one scene to another and from one end to another. The actors also seemed not to know where to direct their acting because the stage and audience area are so long and sightlines so problematic.Director Jan Ellen Graves stages simply and effectively, but she does not always use the length of the stage to good advantage. One actor walks on the stage to the center and makes a military turn before getting into character and then addressing the audience. All the acting is good and solid, but there are no significant performances that really allow you to suspend disbelief, even from Aaron Kirby, who plays Lee Baum, the main narrator at the beginning of the play; you are always aware that you are watching actors. All the nineteen actors in the cast played multiple roles, and there was a distinct energy on the surface, but compared to the actors I'm used to seeing in Madison plays, there seemed no inner life to the characters.In one scene a lady delivers a monologue and two moving men walk in, pick up the piano she is playing, and carry it off. We never find out what happened to the piano or to the lady. She just finishes her talk to the audience. In this play actors sometimes play scenes with each other, sometimes they narrate the story. For me, this diluted the emotional power and made for an unfulfilling evening. Maybe we should not expect so much of this “mural for the theater.”