“I knew perfectly well why they had subpoenaed me,” he once told Richard Eyre. “It was because I was engaged to Marilyn Monroe. When I got to Washington… my lawyer received a message from the chairman saying that if it could be arranged that he could have a picture, a photograph taken with Marilyn, he would cancel the whole hearing. I mean the cynicism of this thing was so total, it was asphyxiating.”
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Okay so I am definitely someone who feels very strongly against Arthur Miller and his plays. Not because of political beliefs but just because I think they are boring and selfish. I clicked on this article, rolling my eyes, expecting another two thousand words about why some straight white guy was so amazing and inventive. I planned on writing my response entirely about how predictable I find his work and how he has even written charismatic characters that were obviously based on himself. But I read the article and I admit I do think the work he has done is brave. Jed often says that people our age, living in this country, will never fear the art we are doing. We will never be put at risk for doing art. The article even goes into detail about how universal and character driven his work is, and that’s something I really admire. I fear what my legacy will be as a writer, and Miller’s has become only about his political contribution. But honestly, he will connect with people no matter what time period he’s in.
The important aspect of this article is an additional point to the ongoing discussion about the best way to perform 'political' theatre. I have often disliked political theatre, because I felt that it was masturbatory in its practice, alienating more than it brought it. No matter what, by strengthening the dichotomy between the political stances, all that we are doing is making it that much more difficult to penetrate. Therefore, what Miller did with the Crucible is astounding, because not only did he make a play that exists with legitimate implications and commentary on his contemporary world, but he expanded the media circus to the heart of its issues, and therefore created a piece who's political implications can be rediscovered in every generation, because their foundation is so strongly grounded in truth. If more of our political theatre sought to do that, we would live in an age of better theatre. It's almost like taking our constant question of 'why this play now?' which minimizes the work to a political statement, and first asking the question of 'why this play?' and following that question with, 'what conversations can it start?'
As I get older, I start to see more and more theatre. When I first started seeing shows when I was younger, I really did not understand the stories you could tell on stage, I was there for the lights and the music. After a few years now, I've begun to understand theatre's role in society and I believe that it is to reflect society for society. So what that means, is that I want theatre to comment on current cultural and social trends to the people that are experiencing society in their everyday lives. So to explore the term "political theatre", I'm not sure exactly what role it has. Theatre should comment on all types of life and should not restrict itself to a narrow vision. Therefore, political theatre should just be theatre and theatre should be political theatre because theatre should embrace all of society to create the work.
Perhaps I am of a minority opinion on this, but I never perceived Arthur Miller or his works as "political". Sure, one would have to be imbecilic to not acknowledge the involvement of politics in and the commentary on government provided by The Crucible. His works, however, as a whole, seem to echo and resonate more in terms of society, and Miller's own personal experiences. To be sure, those personal experiences involved politics, but I think Miller's works were more focused on expressing an opinion about a subject, rather than being about the subject (i.e. politics) itself.
Yes, there is some necessary overlap. Miller did indeed have a keen interest in politics (as anyone with even the briefest knowledge of his life would know). But at the end of the day, I agree with the author. To label Miller's works as "political" is reductive, and attempts to turn his plays into something they are not.
The hardened cynicism of Arthur Miller, as showcased in the opening anecdote of this article, is something that, even at the famed playwright's 100th birthday, one can almost hear McCarthy's knees shaking in his coffin.
In addition to his storytelling prowess and charm abounding, Miller was, first and foremost a literary artist. The article makes a compelling case to disassociate Miller with the "political" label often assigned to him, but one that I never needed to make. Unlike the author, who admits their Miller education was executed in a way that he found unhelpful and inefficient, my own experience was taken on a case-by-case basis, and labels were not tacked to artists like grocery lists to refrigerators.
Perhaps that is the reason that I found this article failing to deeply resonate with me, both as someone who adores Arthur Miller, and as a student, who wishes to simply suck the information out of the reading and go on with my life. At the present moment, I can't tell you why this article leaves me wanting more, but suffice to say I could do with a re-work.
These plays' messages are meant to apply for all times, places, and societies on earth. To call them political would be to narrow their scope to a single time period or place in history, instead of recognizing their universality. I think this is the distinction between political and social that the author of the article was going for: political implies to a single playing field, while social applies to any and all communities on earth. Taking The Crucible out of the context in which it was written allows us to study human beings as people and not as characters from the 1960's, drawing flat parallels between the colonial era and the Red Scare. I believe that both perspectives can give you new information and knowledge. Interpreting The Crucible in the context of McCarthyism isn't a bad thing, if that's all you want to study. However, the actual meaning of the play goes far beyond just a single political era, and shouldn't be confined.
Arthur Miller shouldn't be considered a purely political playwright, however that's the lens through which most of society sees him. Personally, I think this is entirely because of the The Crucible and how it's taught in middle and high schools. Similarly to the author, when I learned about this play in my English class it was paired with the history of the Red Scare. Before we even started reading it we did a research project on McCarthyism, and after we read it we related it to the play. I'm completely sure that we weren't the only high school to do this, which is why everyone views this play as completely political. If someone isn't interested in theater this might be the only exposure they ever get to Arthur Miller's work, which is why the belief that he is a purely political writer is so wide-spread. Until I read Death of a Salesman I believed this too, so I think that the key to changing this view is exposure to his other work.
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