ARTHUR MILLER AT THE TRICYCLE

Because it's Arthur Miller at the Tricycle - What more do you need?  It can be reasonably argued that the former Mr. Marilyn Monroe is America's greatest playwright, not only for the direct and deceptively simple manner in which he sets the theme of his plays but predominantly being able to deliver complex, worldly scenarios that also act as 'state of the nation'-style addresses.

First performed in 1994, Broken Glass is one of Miller's later plays and it follows in a lineage established by the classic plays that made his reputation, including All My Sons, Death of a Salesman and The Crucible, in that a series of personal relationships are explored among the backdrop of a communal social atrocity.  In this instance our protagonists Philip and Sylvia Gellburg are a married Jewish couple living in New York in the years preceding the Second World War.  Their lives, seemingly inexplicably, are disturbed when Sylvia becomes paralysed after reading of Kristallnacht, the two day series of anti-semitic attacks in Nazi Germany, 1938.

The Tricycle Theatre are renowned for staging drama with a strongly political slant, just in the last few years they have shown plays such as Deep Cut, on the mysterious death of four army trainees in the titular Surrey barracks between 1995-2002; The Great Game, a three-part series of twelve newly commissioned plays on the theme of Afghanistan; and Bloody Sunday - Scenes from the Saville Inquiry, one of the theatre's original 'Tribunal' plays, dramatic reconstructions based on public inquiries.

Playing on the themes of the physical and mental experiences that fear and terror has on individuals, Broken Glass is very much an historical piece but one that has a contemporary relevance.  Terror, and the notion that specific communities are specifically targeting members of other communities in combined attack is common motif in most (if not all) editorial-led news programming.  It would be difficult to detach Arthur Miller from his left-wing principles, and the subject matter here is dark.  Admittedly, it would be a mistake to enter an Arthur Miller play expecting to be taken on a journey of wonderment and self-discovery but his is a world of the intricate intimacies upon which relationships are built; it's metaphor, sign and symbol.  His is the interpretation and representation of the raw humanity of people in the most difficult of circumstances - it has been argued that this in itself should be the fundamental role of the playwright.  Miller's standing in the history of twentieth century drama stands testament.

Broken Glass is at The Tricycle Theatre, 269 Kilburn High Road, London NW6 7JR between 30 September - 27 November.

photo: Tristram Kenton, courtesy of Tricycle Theatre