Joan Copeland

 

by Joel Vig

 
A Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s “The Price” opened at the American Airlines Theatre on March 16, 2017 to rave reviews. Attending the performance on opening night was a lady who knows the play very well, actress Joan Copeland. She is Arthur Miller’s younger sister and was part of the original Broadway production in 1968 which ran for 429 performances.

 

Copeland is happy to report that “The Price” is right!” Asking her to elaborate, she told me, ” I am so pleased to say that
what they are doing is playing the play. A wonderful American cast (Danny DeVito, Jessica Hecht, Mark Ruffalo, and Tony Shalhoub) are guided by a gifted American director (Terry Kinney) and they have had the courage and the common sense to trust the words of a great American playwright, Arthur Miller. The designers of the sets and the lighting and the costumes have done beautiful work, but they, too, have done their jobs to serve the play.

 

In the last year, I have sat through a number of productions of Arthur Miller plays that have been so wrong headed.  They have been filled with tricks and gimmicks that draw attention to the director but do not serve the plays.  There is no wolf wandering to the front of the stage in this production of “The Price.” There is no shower of sticky stage blood that douses the cast in this production of “The Price.” There is only an exquisite cast honoring the words and telling the story that my brother wrote. I say it again…”The Price” is right…and most importantly, I know that Arthur would be pleased.”