Now he recalls something, reaches in behind a chest, and takes out a fencing foil and mask. With the record going he moves to the long sculling oar which stands propped against furniture and touches it. He raises the lid of the machine, sees a record already on the turntable, cranks, and sets the tone arm on the record. Then his eye falls on the pile of records in front of the phonograph. He looks at his watch, waiting for time to pass. He turns and crosses to the dining-room table and removes his gun belt and jacket, hanging them on a chair which he has taken off the table, where it had been set upside down along with two others. He moves to the harp with a certain solemnity, as toward a coffin, and, halting before it, reaches out and plucks a string. Without expression, yet somehow stilled by some emanation from the room, he lets his gaze move from point to point, piece to piece, absorbing its sphinxlike presence. He halts inside the room, glances about, walks at random a few feet, then comes to a halt. We are in the attic of a Manhattan brownstone soon to be torn down.įrom the down-left door, Police Sergeant Victor Franz enters in uniform. Down left, a door to the corridor and stairway, which are unseen. At the back, behind a rather makeshift drape, long since faded, can be seen a small sink, a hotplate, and an old icebox. The room is monstrously crowded and dense, and it is difficult to decide if the stuff is impressive or merely over-heavy and ugly.Īn uncovered harp, its gilt chipped, stands alone downstage, right. There is a rich heaviness, something almost Germanic, about the furniture, a weight of time upon the bulging fronts and curving chests marshalled against the walls. Twelve dining-room chairs stand in a row along a dining-room table at left. And overhead one large and one smaller crystal chandelier hang from ropes, not connected to electric wires. Several long rolled-up rugs and some shorter ones. On the floor and stacked against the three walls up to the ceiling are bureaus, armoires, a tall secretary, a breakfront, a long, elaborately carved serving table, end tables, a library table, desks, glass-front bookcases, bow-front glass cabinets, and so forth.
There are four couches and three settees strewn at random over the floor armchairs, wingbacks, a divan, occasional chairs. Outside this area, to the sides and back limits of the room and up the walls, is the chaos of ten rooms of furniture squeezed into this one. The area around the armchair alone appears to be lived-in, with other chairs and a couch related to it. A white cleaning cloth and a mop and pail are nearby. At its left an old wind-up Victrola and a pile of records on a low table. Beside it on its right, a small table with a filigreed radio of the Twenties on it and old newspapers behind it a bridge lamp. The light from above first strikes an overstuffed armchair in center stage. Now daylight seeps through a skylight in the ceiling, grayed by the grimy panes. Daylight filters through their sooty panes, which have been X’d out with fresh whitewash to prepare for the demolition of the building.
Two windows are seen at the back of the stage. He was the recipient of the National Book Foundation 2001 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, he was awarded with the prize Prince of Asturias of Letters in 2002, and in 2003 was awarded the Jerusalem Prize. He has twice won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, and in 1949 he won the Pulitzer Prize. Peters’ Connections (1999), Echoes Down the Corridor: Collected Essays, 1944–2000, and On Politics and the Art of Acting (2001). His most recent works include a memoir, Timebends (1987), the plays The Ride Down Mt. He has also written two novels, Focus (1945) and The Misfits, which was filmed in 1960, and the text for In Russia (1969), In the Country (1977), and Chinese Encounters (1979), three books of photographs by Inge Morath. His plays include All My Sons (1947), Death of a Salesman (1949), The Crucible (1953), A View From the Bridge and A Memory of Two Mondays (1955), After the Fall (1964), Incident at Vichy (1965), The Price (1968), The Creation of the World and Other Business (1972), and The American Clock (1980).
Arthur Miller was born in New York City in 1915 and studied at the University of Michigan.