| The Price | - by Arthur Miller
- until 19 Nov 2005
- Library Theatre, St Peter's Sq
- Manchester M2 5PD
- Box: 0161 236 7110
- or via the website
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The setting is the attic of a Manhattan brownstone in 1968. Two brothers meet after nearly 30 years to agree the sale of the family furniture. But rumbling away are the echoes of long gone disaster – the Wall Street crash. Their adult lives have taken very different turns: Walter Franz is a wealthy successful doctor, Victor a hard-up sergeant serving with New York’s finest. But, as Miller points out, we all pay a price for the lives we choose to live. Victor sacrificed a career in science to care for his father during the Great Depression. As he put it: “Some men don’t bounce.” Walter, meanwhile, has thrived on his brother’s sense of duty, carving out a lucrative career as a surgeon.
 | | David Fleeshman as Solomon |
Walter is desperate to offload his burden of guilt, but Victor’s not in the mood to help out. “You want someone to shake your hand and tell you what a great guy you are,” he says. “Well, I’m not going to give you that.” As family reunions go, it’s got all the warmth of Christmas with the Borgias and the dusty attic air soon crackles with anger and resentment. But in bringing them together, Miller makes his point about personal responsibility and a social conscience. This may not be one of his ‘big three’ (View from the Bridge, The Crucible, Death of a Salesman), but in putting on The Price, the Library Theatre have dusted off one of Arthur Miller’s lesser known masterpieces. | "As family reunions go, it’s got all the warmth of Christmas with the Borgias " | | Richard Turner, reviewer |
With no scene or lighting changes, and a small cast of four, it's all in the writing and the acting – and this production is proud tribute to America's finest playwright. With no exaggeration, I was gripped from start to finish. David Fleeshman - as the wise old Jewish furniture dealer Solomon - steals scenes like an accomplished pickpocket, acting nearly forty years above his age. And Sue Jenkins shrugs off TV typecasting as Brookside’s Jackie Corkhill with a creditable performance as Victor’s wife Esther. But special mention must surely go to Rolf Saxon (Victor) for a spellbinding performance as the dutiful civil servant who rises above his own frustration to be the honorable person we all wish we could be. This is theatre at its finest and deserves every honour that must surely come its way. | 
