The Price
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Sutorius, Prosky, Mather, Chianese
Craig Schwartz
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By January Riddle
Everything has its price. Sometimes the cost is in dollars. Sometimes it’s in relationships, memories, or souls.
San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre currently explores those expenses and sacrifices in its heavy production of Arthur Miller’s play, “The Price.” Weighted down by a dated, ponderously talky script, this drama trods the well-worn paths of sibling rivalries and misbegotten memories.
The fault for that laborious mood does not lie at the feet of the four veteran actors. Both Andy Prosky (the Sad-Sack cop brother Victor Franz) and Leisa Mather (his fed-up wife Esther Franz) had seasoned their roles on Washington, DC’s Arena Stage. James Sutorius (the rich, but poor physician brother) earned the SD Theatre Critics Circle “Craig Noel” Award for best actor two years in a row. Dominic Chianese (the aged, insightful Jewish antique dealer) is just returning to the stage after a long, successful run as Uncle Junior in HBO’s “The Sopranos.” Lightweights they certainly are not, and they do an admirable job with this period piece-cum-soap opera.
True, this production boasts some nice touches. Paul Peterson’s sound design evokes the era with some noises we do not hear today—the typewriter clacking, kids playing ball outside, the chimes of a mantel clock.
Director Richard Seer’s déjà vu scene at the beginning of Act 2, repeating the moments at the end of Act 1 like a soap opera recap, is another clever device. Yet, his blocking forced too many coat-snatching, storming-out tantrums that became almost comic in their repetitiousness. And Robin Sanford Roberts’ crammed set left no room for real movement on the Arena Theatre’s postage-stamp stage. But it was the author’s lack of faith in mankind’s abilities for self-analysis that is responsible for the play’s pessimistic tone. Miller once said that living through the Depression influenced his work. In this play, as in the playwright, the past created the present.
The hefty plot focuses on the brothers Franz, estranged for over 16 years, since the death of their debilitated and bereaved father, who grieved the loss of his wife and, probably more, the loss of his millions in the Crash of ’29. Walter fled the mournful home and became a doctor. Vic stayed to care for dad, gave up his dream of becoming a scientist and became a cop. Vic has a head full of resentment for his sacrifices. Esther, his wife, augments his mood and adds her own, bored housewife syndrome. Walter self-righteously lords it over his less-fortunate sibling and in-law while, at the same time, lamenting his 3-year stay in a mental hospital, his divorce, and his current isolation.
There is a lovely tender moment when the brothers look up at the hole in the ceiling made decades ago when Vic’s 2-way radio battery exploded. But this flash of hope for reconciliation is quickly extinguished as the brothers return to arguing their versions of the past.
There is some universality in the questions they ask. Who has not looked back at life and wondered how it turned out like this? How did we get where we are? Missed chances, missed communication and misunderstandings vie for blame with disloyalty, dishonor, and the realizations that some family secrets could have changed lives for the better had they only been revealed in time.
Evidently believing that an unexamined life is not worth living, Vic and Walter take turns analyzing each other’s excuses, exposing dingy family secrets and detailing the bad hands fate dealt them. Esther attempts to mediate the arguments, while chiming in to deplore her own sorry situation. These are some seriously unhappy folks and each thinks he paid the higher price. It becomes sadly evident that it is not possible to forgive without understanding.
Thank heavens for the antique dealer, Gregory Solomon, whose well-examined life prompts the words of wisdom that fall on deaf ears but liven up the action. The old guy has come to appraise the furniture and bric-a-brac and to give Vic a price for the entire used-up collection. Finding himself in the middle of this family drama, Solomon offers his own stories, witticisms, and parables in vain attempts to both close the deal and bring into being some soulful awakening.
Alas, the latter never comes to the Franz family. Both the play and the brothers bog down in the “Choices or Fate?” question. The guys are unable and unwilling to stop digging in their mucky pasts and splattering mud all over each other. Attacking illusion is easier than discovering truth.
But hope comes to those who embrace it. Solomon’s life crises included a daughter who committed suicide, four marriages, and an antique shop with only a few andirons for merchandise. At first looking on this motley collection of Franz family stuff as an insurmountable burden for his 89-year-old energies to deal with, Solomon discovers in the challenge a brand new raison d’etre. His shop (and his life) will once again be full, he says, and he will no longer simply wait to die.
At least, what he paid was well worth the price. The Price continues at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre in Balboa Park through
June 14.
Curtain: 7 pm Tues-Weds and Sun; 8 pm Thurs, Fri, Sat.
Matinees on Sat. and Sun. are at 2 pm.
Tickets are $29-$59
For reservations, call 619-234-5623 or go online at TheOldGlobe.org
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