Arthur Miller - RIP

Miller Recalled as Last of Giants

By JESSE McKINLEY
Published: February 12, 2005


Brian Dennehy was already well into his run as Willy Loman in the 1999 Broadway revival of "Death of a Salesman" when the play's author, Arthur Miller, approached him with a small note on his performance.

"He said, 'You're leaving out a line,' " Mr. Dennehy recalled yesterday. "And I said: 'I don't think so. What line?' And he said, 'You're leaving out an "Oh" in the bar scene.' "

That eye (or ear) for detail was just one of the many creative traits being celebrated along Broadway yesterday, where Mr. Miller was a force for 60 years - from his debut in 1944 with "The Man Who Had All the Luck" to last year's revival of his autobiographical drama "After the Fall." His unparalleled run touched generations of actors, directors and playwrights.

"I think Arthur was one of the last giants to stride the earth," said Robert Falls, who directed the "Salesman" revival that starred Mr. Dennehy. "With Tennessee Williams and Eugene O'Neill, they created the serious American drama. Broadway has changed, of course, but I think he's one of the three giants, and the last one saying this is serious business and must be taken that way."

Indeed, for those who worked with him, Mr. Miller exemplified the ideal man of the theater: a high-minded, hard-working aesthete blessed with a surprising open-mindedness, especially considering his accomplishments. "He loved talking to actors," said the actress Frances Conroy, who appeared on Broadway in two of Mr. Miller's later plays, "Broken Glass" and "The Ride Down Mount Morgan." "He wrote great notes. They were so clear. He was shy to people he didn't know, but he was always open to an actor that was working with him."

John Guare, whose works include "Six Degrees of Separation" and "The House of Blue Leaves," was a young playwright on the rise when he first met Mr. Miller at the Midtown restaurant La Strada with the legendary producer Robert Whitehead.

"Whitehead was, like, 'Oh, you know Arthur Miller,' and I was, like, 'Er, uh, oh, hi,' " Mr. Guare said. "But Arthur just sat down and did, like, 20 minutes of stand-up comedy about the business. And it was always the best kind of shop talk."

For playwrights like Mr. Guare, Mr. Miller was a hero for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that he favored theater over the more lucrative lights of Hollywood. "Arthur made the choice of being a playwright a moral choice," Mr. Guare said. "If you had the ability to write plays, you simply had to."

Mr. Miller's social and political stands - his marriage to Marilyn Monroe, his opposition to Senator Joseph R. McCarthy - "took the playwright out of the ivory tower," Mr. Guare added. "Arthur was there - in real life."

"Politically, sexually, whatever," Mr. Guare said, "he was in the front row."

The playwright Tony Kushner, who, like Mr. Miller, has often mixed his art and his politics, echoed that sentiment. "As a political figure, he was a progressive man, but never doctrinaire," Mr. Kushner said. "There was a simplicity, and humbleness, and decency in his work."

He said he was always most impressed by the literary craftsmanship of Mr. Miller's plays. "They are staggeringly well structured," he said. "I've read them over and over again, trying to figure out how the hell he did it."

For actors, even big stars, working with Mr. Miller was considered a badge of honor. Liam Neeson, who appeared in the 2002 Broadway revival of Mr. Miller's "Crucible," described him as "an intellectual and a farmer and a carpenter, too." Mr. Neeson, who wasn't born when "Death of a Salesman" had its premiere in 1949, said he held Mr. Miller in awe and counted working with him as "one experience I keep in the memory bank."

In particular, Mr. Neeson remembered that he and his fellow cast members held their collective breath after an early run-through of "The Crucible."

"The lights came up," he said, "and there was one man sitting in a chair, and it was Arthur." The one thing that pulled us through was that it would never be as tough as that." Daunting as he was, however, Mr. Miller soon smiled and said he approved.

David Richenthal, who produced three of Mr. Miller's plays on Broadway, said that Mr. Miller's children would probably handle his estate. He added that he, Mr. Falls and Mr. Dennehy were planning a London production of "Salesman" in May.

"Arthur was very involved in it," Mr. Richenthal said. "He was very enthusiastic and wanted to make the trip for the opening."

A tall man whose frame seemed to fill any doorway, Mr. Miller was repeatedly described by Mr. Richenthal and others in terms that suggested both his physical and his cultural stature. (Mr. Neeson called him "a big, sexy giant.")

Mr. Dennehy summed up: "He was a planet and there aren't many of those. And his passing affects the gravity of all of our existences."