GO I NG TOTHEAT E
R (A ND THE M0 VI ES)
The theater has a long history as a public art. But, outside the
provinces of socialist realism, there are few plays today dealing with
social-and-topical problems. The best modern plays are those devoted
to raking up private, rather than public, hells. The public voice in the
theater today is crude and raucous, and, all too often, weakminded.
The most notable example of weakmindedness around at the mo–
ment is Arthur Miller's new play,
After the Fall,
which opened the first
season of the Lincoln Center Repertory Theatre. Miller's play stands or
falls on the authenticity of its moral seriousness, and on its being about
"big" issues. But, unfortunately, Miller chose as the method of his
pl~y
the garrulous monologue of the psychoanalytic confessional, and flat–
teringly designated the audience as the Great Listener. "The action of
the play takes place in the mind and memory of Quentin, a con–
temporary man" this poor Quentin is! Contemporary man (as Miller
and the timeless, placeless interior setting give the show away: what–
ever stirring public issues
After the Fall
may confront, they are treated
as the furniture of a mind. That places an awful burden on Miller's
"Quentin, a contemporary man," who must literally hold the world
in
his
head. To pull that one off, it has to be a very good head, a very
interesting and intelligent one. And the head of Miller's hero isn't any
of these things. His character is not much of a source of pleasure, either.
In fact, what a passive, mealy-minded, self-pitying creep of a "c.on–
temporary man" this poor Quentin is! Contemporary man (as Miller
represents him) seems stuck in an ungainly project of self-exoneration.
Self-exoneration, of course, implies self-exposure; and there
is
a lot of
that in
After the Fall.
Many people are willing to give Miller a good
deal of credit for the daring of his self-exposure--as husband, lover,
political man, and artist. I am not, since I learned nothing from it.
In this play, Miller's self-exposure is mere self-indulgence.
After the Fall
does not present an action, but ideas about action.
Its psychological ideas owe more to Franzblau than Freud. (Quentin's
mother wanted
him
to have beautiful penmanship to take revenge
through her son upon her successful but virtually illiterate business-
