Broadcast: March 6, 2005
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VOICE ONE:
I’m Barbara Klein.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Steve Ember with People in America in VOA Special English. Today we
tell about Arthur Miller. Many theater critics believe he was one of the
greatest American playwrights of the twentieth century.
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VOICE ONE:
Several plays by Arthur Miller will probably be performed for many years to
come. That is because critics say Miller was able to dramatize the emotional
pain that average people suffer in their daily lives.
A critic once described Miller as an activist for the common man. He
demonstrates this well in one of his most famous plays, “Death of a
Salesman.” The main character is a man whose dreams of success in business
have died.
But Miller’s interest in the average man did not stop him from exploring
major problems of society. In “The Crucible”, for example, he shows what
happens when unreasonable dislike and fear cause people to accuse innocent
people of horrible crimes.
Some other of his best-known plays include “All My Sons”, “A View from the
Bridge” and “After the Fall.”
VOICE TWO:
Arthur Miller was born in New York City in nineteen fifteen. He died in two
thousand five at his home in Roxbury, Connecticut. For sixty years, he
created one dramatic work after another. Miller won many awards for his
plays. Among them were a Pulitzer Prize, New York Drama Critics’ Circle
prizes and Tony awards. In nineteen eighty-four, the John F. Kennedy Center
for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. honored him for his lifetime work
in drama.
VOICE TWO (CONT):
Miller also created stories for movies. For example, he wrote “The Misfits”
for actress Marilyn Monroe. Miller’s television drama, “Playing for Time”,
told of an orchestra of prisoners at the Nazi death camp, Auschwitz, during
World War Two. Miller was also a political activist for human rights. But it
was drama performed in the theater that Miller loved most.
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VOICE ONE:
Arthur Miller grew up in New York. His father, Isidore Miller, manufactured
clothing and operated a store. But the father lost his money in the great
economic Depression in the nineteen thirties. The family had to move from a
costly apartment in Manhattan to a small house in Brooklyn.
During the Depression, Arthur worked at many jobs to earn money for college.
In nineteen thirty-four, he began studying English at the University of
Michigan in Ann Arbor. Miller won an award for writing plays while at school.
VOICE TWO:
Miller returned home to New York after completing his studies. He married his
college girlfriend, Mary Slattery. They had two children before later ending
their marriage.
In nineteen forty-four, Arthur Miller’s first major play was performed on
Broadway. It was called “The Man Who Had All the Luck.” However, the play
did not bring him good luck. It had only four performances. But his second
Broadway play, “All My Sons”, was a major success It won several awards in
nineteen forty-seven.
“All My Sons” tells of a manufacturer who produces faulty parts for
airplanes used in World War Two. One of his sons dies as the result of the
father’s crime. In the play, Miller examines the relationship between the
pressure to succeed and personal responsibility.
VOICE ONE:
Miller’s great play, “Death of a Salesman”, opened on Broadway in nineteen
forty-nine. He was thirty-three years old when he wrote it. “Death of a
Salesman” questions the pressures in American society for people to gain
financial success. The play also continues his exploration of the
relationships between fathers and sons.
The central character in “Death of a Salesman” is sixty-year-old Willy
Loman. The action opens on the last day of Willy’s life. He has been
dismissed from his job as a traveling salesman. He also recognizes that he
has failed as a father. Willy thinks about killing himself.
Willy’s wife Linda understands that he is deeply and dangerously sad. But
their son Biff criticizes his father’s strange actions. She answers with
some of the most famous words in the American theater:
