Miller, Arthur

Miller, Arthur (1915–2005), American dramatist, who while a student at Michigan University won three drama prizes, one of which he shared with Tennessee Williams. His first success was All My Sons (1947; London, 1948), in which a wartime profiteer realizes he has caused the death of his own son. Death of a Salesman (NY and London, 1949), about a salesman's refusal to face the failure of his career and family relationships, received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and contained some of his best work. In 1950 Miller prepared a new translation of An Enemy of the People by Ibsen, a dramatist by whom he is believed to have been much influenced. The Crucible (1953; London, 1956), a powerful play dealing with the witch-trials of the 17th century, was widely interpreted as an attack on the political witch-hunting then prevalent in the USA. Two one-act plays, A View from the Bridge and A Memory of Two Mondays, were seen in 1955. Rewritten in three acts, A View from the Bridge was produced in London in 1956 as a club production because it concerns a false attribution of homosexuality, the revised version being produced in New York in 1965. It was widely believed, though Miller denied it, that his marriage to the film star Marilyn Monroe provided the background to his next play After the Fall (1964; National Theatre, 1990). Later in 1964 came Incident at Vichy (London, 1966), about a group of men undergoing examination by the Nazis to see if they are Jews. Neither of these plays pleased the critics, and in 1968 Miller returned to the scene of his earlier successes—American family life—with The Price (London, 1969). His later works—The Creation of the World and Other Business (1972), about Adam and his family, The Archbishop's Ceiling (1977; RSC, 1986), not given a New York production, and The American Clock (1980; NT, 1986), set in the Depression—found little favour. He made a partial return to his earlier quality, however, with The Ride down Mt Morgan (London, 1991), a ‘serious comedy’ about bigamy.