Road Less Traveled to stage Arthur Miller’s first play
When it opened on Broadway in 1944, “The Man Who Had All the Luck: A Fable” could have used a lucky charm.
The play, the first effort of a then-unknown playwright named Arthur Miller, was panned by critics and ran for a mere four performances. It then gathered dust until the early ’90s, when Dan Fields, now a California-based director, ran across the play in the archives of the Seattle Repertory Theatre. After a successful production by the Antaeus Company in Los Angeles in 2000, the play caught the eye of New York City director Scott Ellis, who eventually brought it back to Broadway for a critically hailed production in 2002.
PREVIEW
WHAT: “The Man Who Had All the Luck”
WHEN: Opens at 7:30 tonight and runs through May 17
WHERE: Road Less Traveled Theatre, 639 Main St.
TICKETS: $15 to $30
INFO: 629-3069 or road lesstraveledproductions.org
And now, “The Man Who Had All the Luck” will have its turn in Buffalo in a production opening today in Road Less Traveled Theatre. The play is a critical reflection on the role of fortune — good, bad and non-existent — in American society. It centers on the chronically lucky young mechanic David Beeves, as well as the conflicts that arise between him and his less fortunate brother, Amos, and his father, Patterson. The play features the largest cast yet for RLTP, with 11 separate roles.
For Behrend, Miller’s first play provides a fascinating blueprint for the playwright’s more familiar work and a chance to reflect on the genesis of a brilliant career.
“If you’re a Miller fan, I think the story is really interesting because, as his first play, you see clear road marks for his later plays, especially plays like ‘Death of a Salesman’ and ‘All My Sons,’ ” Behrend said. “This play definitely has the seeds of that father, son and then brother conflict going on.”
In its recent Broadway production, the role of the prototypical Miller father was played by James Rebhorn, an actor who has appeared in countless films (“Independence Day,” “Head of State,” “The Talented Mr. Ripley”) and television shows, as well as the occasional sojourn onto the New York stage. As part of RLTP’s “American Masters” series, Rebhorn will come to Buffalo on May 1 to give a private Q&A session for the theater’s playwrights and invited guests, as well as to rub elbows at its annual spring fundraising gala.
Rebhorn described the role of Patterson, to be played in the RLTP production by veteran local actor Gerry Maher, as the exemplar of a father who unfairly projects his own failed hopes and dreams onto his children — much like Willy Loman in “Death of a Salesman.” He also touted the opportunity to play Patterson as a welcome break from the world of television and film, where he is generally typecast into roles like devious middle managers, military men and business executives.
“I found the role and the play investigated a facet of the human condition that I had not really explored,” Rebhorn said. “And it was a character that did not require me to wear a suit, which is what most of my characters in film do.”
The show also offers the budding playwrights of Western New York a lesson that they can take to heart.
“It certainly had the hell beat out of it by the critics the first time it came out in 1944, and it closed after four performances,” Behrend said. “But Miller soldiered on and became one of our great American playwrights.”•
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