The Price: Simon Delaney takes a swing at prestige drama
Arthur Miller’s family inheritance drama creaks under all its furniture.
Gate Theatre, Dublin
★★★☆☆
Early in the Gate Theatre’s mid-century drama The Price, we see Victor, a policeman made weary by decades on the beat, walk through his dead father’s apartment. He dusts off an old victrola, and uncovers one of those novelties from the early gramophone era: the “laughing record.” Imprinted with people’s giggles, these discs treated laugher as if it were contagious, daring their listeners not to lose their nerve and howl uncontrollably.
Arthur Miller’s playscript from 1968 has the elements of a prestige drama, its epic family saga playing out in the elegant surroundings of a Manhattan brownstone lit by golden sunlight. The pieces of a large collection of splendid European furniture neatly interlock as they stack towards the ceiling. The only thing that seems out of place is Victor who, in the appearance of Simon Delaney, is a familiarly homey face from daytime television. Even the actor’s recent stage roles were in feel-good plays like Driving Miss Daisy and The Snapper. Now he is taking on the central role in an Arthur Miller play.