By Jerilyn Watson

Broadcast: March 6, 2005

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VOICE ONE:

I’m Barbara Klein.

VOICE TWO:

And I’m Steve Ember with People in America in VOA Special English. Today we

tell about Arthur Miller. Many theater critics believe he was one of the

greatest American playwrights of the twentieth century.

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VOICE ONE:

Several plays by Arthur Miller will probably be performed for many years to

come. That is because critics say Miller was able to dramatize the emotional

pain that average people suffer in their daily lives.

A critic once described Miller as an activist for the common man. He

demonstrates this well in one of his most famous plays, “Death of a

Salesman.” The main character is a man whose dreams of success in business

have died.

But Miller’s interest in the average man did not stop him from exploring

major problems of society. In “The Crucible”, for example, he shows what

happens when unreasonable dislike and fear cause people to accuse innocent

people of horrible crimes.

Some other of his best-known plays include “All My Sons”, “A View from the

Bridge” and “After the Fall.”

VOICE TWO:

Arthur Miller was born in New York City in nineteen fifteen. He died in two

thousand five at his home in Roxbury, Connecticut. For sixty years, he

created one dramatic work after another. Miller won many awards for his

plays. Among them were a Pulitzer Prize, New York Drama Critics’ Circle

prizes and Tony awards. In nineteen eighty-four, the John F. Kennedy Center

for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. honored him for his lifetime work

in drama.

VOICE TWO (CONT):

Miller also created stories for movies. For example, he wrote “The Misfits”

for actress Marilyn Monroe. Miller’s television drama, “Playing for Time”,

told of an orchestra of prisoners at the Nazi death camp, Auschwitz, during

World War Two. Miller was also a political activist for human rights. But it

was drama performed in the theater that Miller loved most.

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VOICE ONE:

Arthur Miller grew up in New York. His father, Isidore Miller, manufactured

clothing and operated a store. But the father lost his money in the great

economic Depression in the nineteen thirties. The family had to move from a

costly apartment in Manhattan to a small house in Brooklyn.

During the Depression, Arthur worked at many jobs to earn money for college.

In nineteen thirty-four, he began studying English at the University of

Michigan in Ann Arbor. Miller won an award for writing plays while at school.

VOICE TWO:

Miller returned home to New York after completing his studies. He married his

college girlfriend, Mary Slattery. They had two children before later ending

their marriage.

In nineteen forty-four, Arthur Miller’s first major play was performed on

Broadway. It was called “The Man Who Had All the Luck.” However, the play

did not bring him good luck. It had only four performances. But his second

Broadway play, “All My Sons”, was a major success It won several awards in

nineteen forty-seven.

“All My Sons” tells of a manufacturer who produces faulty parts for

airplanes used in World War Two. One of his sons dies as the result of the

father’s crime. In the play, Miller examines the relationship between the

pressure to succeed and personal responsibility.

VOICE ONE:

Miller’s great play, “Death of a Salesman”, opened on Broadway in nineteen

forty-nine. He was thirty-three years old when he wrote it. “Death of a

Salesman” questions the pressures in American society for people to gain

financial success. The play also continues his exploration of the

relationships between fathers and sons.

The central character in “Death of a Salesman” is sixty-year-old Willy

Loman. The action opens on the last day of Willy’s life. He has been

dismissed from his job as a traveling salesman. He also recognizes that he

has failed as a father. Willy thinks about killing himself.

Willy’s wife Linda understands that he is deeply and dangerously sad. But

their son Biff criticizes his father’s strange actions. She answers with

some of the most famous words in the American theater: