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THE
ARTS/THEATER
MAY
22, 2000 VOL. 155 NO. 21 VISIONS 21
Good
Luck
Arthur
Miller's first play gets its first U.S. revival
BY
RICHARD SCHICKEL
His
latest play is running successfully on Broadway. A string of
first-rate revivals has, in recent years, burnished a glowing
reputation. There's even a new opera based on one of his tragedies
that has a shot at entering the modern repertory. Alone of his
theatrical generation, Arthur Miller, at 84, remains a living,
vital force on our stages.
A
small but worthwhile part of his good fortune is the first-ever
U.S. revival of his first professionally produced play, called,
with ironic aptness,The Man Who Had All the Luck. Now running
in a smart, wonderfully acted production at the Ivy Substation
in Culver City, Calif., the play opened on Broadway in 1944 and
closed after four nights. At the time, Miller thought it was
victimized by the cult of the well-made play, and he may be right.
For Luck is a sometimes comic melodrama that flirts a little
messily with tragedy--particularly in that Miller specialty,
father-son relationships.
Its
title character, David Beeves (played by the electrifying Paul
Gutrecht), is a small-town garage mechanic, who effortlessly
rises to prosperity and marital contentment and can't understand
what he has done to deserve his happy fate--especially as he
watches his father meddlesomely destroy his brother's baseball
dreams. David must tempt the gods' benignity. The dramaturgy
here is crude, but the subsidiary roles are divertingly drawn.
Dan Fields' good direction planes down the rough spots, and you
leave admiring the vigor of a compelling young talent on his
way to becoming a major one. END
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