Cry for Justice

By T.E.K.

THE PRICE by Arthur Miller

If Arthur Miller had not become a famous playwright, he might have made a top trial lawyer. The rhetoric of the courtroom comes naturally to him. So does the thrust and parry of confrontation. He relishes the niceties of assessing blame, pronouncing guilt and passionately pursuing the quest for justice.

In The Price, this quest involves two brothers. The only guilty parties are the past and life's cruel way of wasting lives. The critical event for Walter Franz (Fritz Weaver) and his brother Victor (Mitchell Ryan) was the financial castration of their father in the Great Crash of '29. Victor abandoned his natural bent for science and joined the police force to provide a se cure home for the old man. Unwilling to share that responsibility, Walter cut out, earned his way through medical school and became a successful doctor. His bad nerves are the price of ill-buried remorse and of ordering his life by the jungle code.

Victor's sacrificial smugness serves to sweeten the bad taste of having lacked the will to rise to his potential. All this and more emerge in tirades that tend to drone when they should crackle.

The brothers are met to sell off an attic full of old family possessions. This brings in the character who saves the evening. Gregory Solomon (Joseph Buloff) is a marvelous comic invention, a wandering Jewish trader who has spent most of his 89 years in the universe of used furniture.

He is rich in juice and joy. His tongue drips wise saws and modern instances like a mercantile Polonius. Buloff is a treasure in the role, an ancient of days, full of pith and vinegar.

T.E.K.

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