After the Fall

After the Fall (1964), a play by Arthur Miller. [ANTA, Washington Square Theatre, 208 perf.] Quentin ( Jason Robards Jr.) is a middle‐aged lawyer who attempts to bring his life into focus by examining his past. Clearly the women in his life have been pivotal. They were his troubled Mother ( Virginia Kaye); his first wife, Louise ( Mariclare Costello), who valued her independence above all; and his prospective third wife, Holga ( Salome Jens), still scarred by her life in Nazi Germany. But most of all there was his second wife, Maggie ( Barbara Loden), a beautiful but insecure actress who ultimately committed suicide. Many critics saw the play as an autobiographical shriving, with the main action centered on Miller's failed marriage to actress Marilyn Monroe. The play was the first production of the Repertory Theatre of Lincoln Center, but was mounted at a specially constructed theatre pending the completion of the Vivian Beaumont Theatre. After the Fall was revived Off Broadway in 1992 with Frank Langella as Quentin and in 2004 with Peter Krause in the role.