By Mira Kocherhans
This year’s Utah Shakespeare Festival brings modern energy to Arthur Miller’s classic play, The Price in Cedar City, Utah. This showpiece is wholly applicable today as it was in its release year of 1968, dealing with timeless issues such as unresolved resentments, money, responsibility, and self-sovereignty.
Victor Franz is a Manhattan policeman at the brink of retirement who gave up his education years ago to care for his aging father and his house. His father passed and his house is being demolished, he’s tasked with selling his parents’ plethora of old possessions that his wife Esther is adamantly insists they get a hefty sum for. Victor means to split whatever he gets with his brother Walter, who he hasn’t spoken to in 16 years, but his calls were not answered. Victor agrees to an $1100 offer from Solomon, a furniture vendor, but when Walter shockingly arrives, he tries to sway Solomon and Victor into raising the price. Walter, a successful surgeon, insists all the money go to Victor and the deal is questioned. The brothers debate over the money but the outer shell of the argument quickly sheds to reveal the underlying resentment and misunderstandings the two are truly fighting about.
Victor Franz (John G. Preston) has a juvenile spirit, both in his tendency to giggle at ill-fit moments and to be angry and indignant during the next. He is captivating and has a nature that inclines you to wantto be on his side. You yearn for him to succeed. The confrontations between him and Walter(Andrew May ) specifically enabled me to suspend my disbelief without realizing it. In moments of silence, I would only then remember that the people and situation I was watching weren’t real. There is nothing more satisfying as an audience member than to forget you are an audience member. It’s thrilling to instead feel as if you’re looking through an attic window into a family’s reality.
Portraying a relationship as believable is one of the most challenging ventures in acting but Victor and Esther are successful in conveying their relationship as authentic. Their style of banter and energy of understanding between the two is comfortable to watch and there isn’t an inkling of doubt as to whether the two characters are married.
May brings compelling, charismatic charm to the role of Walter and is powerful in voice and manner. He enters the story at the end of the first act and brings a missing piece you didn’t know was missing. His character contains varieties of energy and emotions, peaks and valleys of feeling power and feeling guilt. He is undeniably human and his performance as a whole is exquisite.
Armin Shimerman (Solomon) balances comedy with excellently offering enlightened wisdom. Each choice is fueled with vigor and life. Not a single line he offers is not fantastically thoughtful. His trajectory is exciting and could never be predicted. Director Kathleen F. Conlin successfully captures the reality of the imperfection of humans. I always applaud directors that, rather than asserting their own judgments, invite the audience to come form their own opinions about matters in the production and Conlin does just that. She guides the story to be portrayed in a way that audience members must come to their own conclusions on what is right and what they agree with. Who is right—Victor or Walter? Are either of them?The ambiance created by the designers of this piece greatly contribute to infusing the audience in the lives of these characters and creating an authentic atmosphere. The first thing we hear is street sounds, designed by Joe Payne, which serve to instantly transport you to Manhattan. The scenic design of Tim Brown creates a cramped, attic-like atmosphere and the spacing of the furniture and the furniture piled up in one of the aisles is excellent. I was fascinated to see the specificity of the lighting by Donna Ruzika, the lamps lighting perfectly timed with the overhead stage lights.
A show like The Price fits excellently into the season of Cedar City’s Utah Shakespeare Festival, sharing the timelessness of the issues dealt with in Shakespeare’s plays. For my fellow theatergoers who enjoy spending the hour after they see a play picking apart symbolism and themes, and dissecting lines, there is no better play than The Price to give you an array of content to do just that.
Utah Shakespeare Festival Presents The Price, by Arthur Miller, Eileen and Allen Anes Studio Theatre, 101-199 W University Blvd, Cedar City, UT 84720
September 12 – October 12, 2019, 2:00 PM, 8:00 PM
Tickets: $52-$56, All Seats Reserved
Utah Shakespeare Festival Shakespeare Page
Utah Shakespeare Festival Website
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