PrintSeptember 1, 2007
Death of a Phony
I must confess that I never liked playwright Arthur Miller's work, even though I never really publicly criticized it. As an Ivy-educated, Ivy-employed intellectual, I was supposed to think he was deep. All the right people agreed on that point. So I sat through performances of his most famous work, Death of a Salesman, on several occasions, in the company of my parents at first, and as a season ticket holder at a couple of repertory theatres in adulthood.But I always found Death to be tedious and pretentious. The author must have been a rather unpleasant man, I would find myself musing during the seemingly endless performances. Even if he did manage to snag poor disturbed and abused Marilyn Monroe as a trophy wife for awhile. As an adolescent, I adored Marilyn. I still do, although I appreciate the tragedy she lived through more deeply, the more I learn of her treatment at the hands of adult males when she was a girl, Hollywood when she was seeking stardom, Joe DiMaggio when...(Read Full Article)
