Nest week, Apollo Players continue their 35th Season with Arthur Miller’s searing drama, Death of a Salesman.
Arthur Miller (1915-2005), combined in his works social awareness with deep insights into the personal weaknesses of his characters. He is best known for this play Death of a Salesman (1949) or, perhaps, for his marriage to the actress Marilyn Monroe.
Miller was born in New York, and his father, Isidore Miller, was a ladies-wear manufacturer and shopkeeper who was ruined in the depression. The sudden change in fortune had a strong influence on Miller, with his family moving to a small frame house in Brooklyn, which is said to the model for the Brooklyn home in Death of a Salesman. Miller spent his boyhood playing football and baseball, reading adventure stories, and appearing generally as a non-intellectual. He even worked in an automobile parts warehouse to earn money for college. After graduating in English in 1938, Miller returned to New York. There he joined the Federal Theatre Project, and wrote scripts for radio programmes. Miller’s first play to appear on Broadway was The Man Who Had All The Luck (1944), which closed after just four performances. Three years later his All My Sons won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award and two Tony Awards.
Miller’s plays often depict how families are destroyed by false values. Death of a Salesman is viewed by many as a caustic attack on the American Dream of achieving wealth and success without regard for principle. The play made both Arthur Miller and the character Willy
Loman household names, and sealed Miller’s reputation as America’s leading man of letters.
The play was greeted with enthusiastic reviews, received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1949, the 1949 Tony Award for Best Play as well as the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play. In fact, Death of a Salesman was the first play to win all these three major awards.
In the 1950s Miller was subjected to a scrutiny by a committee of the United States Congress investigating Communist influence in the arts and he was denied a passport to attend the Brussels premiere of his play The Crucible (1953). This play, which received the Antoinette Perry Award, was an allegory for the McCarthy era and mass hysteria.
In the Apollo’s fortcoming production,the main cast includes many familiar faces such as Ian Moth, Edna Crosbie and Daniel Cawtheray, together with several recent arrivals on the Players’ membership list: Nick Pillow, Canadian Nico Yokarinis, Matt Archer and Dan Stotesbury.
The drama is directed by Steve Reading, in association with Di Evans.
During the run an exhibition of Paula Bailey’s photographs will be on
display in the Theatre Bar. She has a fascination for the mundane details of everyday life and creates unusual images reflecting the beauty of decay, rust, urban weeds, pavements and many other subjects, mostly photographed on the Isle of Wight. Her floral photography is another aspect of her work and she has recently been experimenting with digital techniques to produce striking images with a difference.
Further information is available from the director on 533432.
The Play runs from Wednesday October 18th to Saturday 21st and again from Wednesday 25th to Saturday 28th starting at 7.30
Final Dress Rehearsal: Tuesday 17th October at 7.30 pm. Press photographs approx. 7.15pm
Please Note: If you wish to take advantage of this opportunity it would be advisable to ring the Director for confirmation beforehand.