Mark Steyn: Ballyhooed 'Crucible' Was Way Out in Left Field

The Chicago Sun-Times ^ | February 20, 2005 | Mark Steyn

[quidnunc]

Attention must be paid. That's the line — the big line from ''Death of a Salesman.'' And, if you missed it this last week or so, well, you weren't paying attention. It was the headline in the Christian Science Monitor, and the New York Times: ''Attention Must Be Paid.'' California's Contra Costa Times went with: '' 'Attention Must Be Paid' To Playwright.'' And the Chicago Tribune saved it for the slow-motion elephantine punchline of its opening paragraph: ''The Man who wrote 'Death of a Salesman' died Thursday. And attention must be paid.''

In Britain, where they've built an Arthur Miller Centre for the Advancement of American Studies at the University of East Anglia, they paid even more attention. For a couple of decades, the Royal National Theatre's given the impression it would be happy to stage Arthur Miller's Grocery List, preferably as a trilogy.

So attention was paid. If there were other memorable lines in the Miller oeuvre, his obituarists seemed disinclined to wander over to the dictionary of quotations and look them up. And in fairness — like ''Bob Hope: Thanks For The Memories!'' and ''Sinatra: He Did It His Way'' — the ubiquitous headline did capture, in its relentless hectoring, something of the essence of the man and his writing. The other word was "moralist": He was the "Moral Voice Of The American Stage" (the New York Times headline) with "A Morality That Stared Down Sanctimony" (another New York Times You can never run enough Arthur Miller appreciations). "Moralist" in this instance is code for ''lefty.'' For some reason his obituarists were a little touchy about the suggestion that there might be any partisan political element to his decade-in decade-out unchanging ''indictment of the sad, hollow center of the American Dream'' (the Atlanta Journal-Constitution).

-snip-

[GeronL]

Someone should write "Death of a Utopian"

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

IMO, Henry Miller was better.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

Or, "He shoulda Been a Better Salesman".

[scottybk]

The dude banged Marilyn Monroe. Cool.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

Banging a skank gets only one point. Ted Kennedy banged skanks.

[speedy]

And Dennis Miller was better still. Maybe even Mitch Miller.

[satchmodog9]

Who didn't.

[jocon307]

"...Miller's utter humorlessness..." Many writers have made this observation. I always knew he was over rated, but I do still think the Crucible, taken on its own, is a good play.

[fhayek]

For my money, it's Barney Miller.

[Captainpaintball]

Ann Miller had the best gams of all of 'em.

[nopardons]

And was a far better dancer.

But Joe Miller's joke book was funnier!

[Maynerd]

Someone should write "Death of a Utopian"

LOL. There's a Rush/Paul Shanklin parody to be made.

[freebilly]

Brad Miller has a better jump shot than Arthur had....

[GeronL]

ooohh... ohh...

Lets turn on the oldies station and see if we can parody him to whatever is playing...

um... maybe not... MUSTANG SALLY..?? Ride Arthur Ride... Lie Arthur Lie??

[GeronL]

You don't know what its like.....??? I fought the law and the law won??... and the beat goes on??

[Clemenza]

And Johnny Miller had a better swing on the greens.

[MadIvan]

And Miller Beer was better for the braincells than Arthur's plays.

Regards, Ivan

[Chi-townChief]

Here's where Steyn nails it:

"Miller was the most useful of the useful idiots. It was a marvelous inspiration to recast the communist "hysteria" of the 1950s as the Salem witch trials of the 1690s. Many people have pointed out the obvious flaw with ''The Crucible'' -- that there were no witches, whereas there were certainly communists. For one thing, they were gobbling up a lot of real estate: They seized Poland in 1945, Bulgaria in '46, Hungary and Romania in '47, Czechoslavakia in '48, China in '49; they very nearly grabbed Greece and Italy; they were the main influence on the nationalist movements of Africa and Asia. Imagine the Massachusetts witch trials if the witches were running Virginia, New York and New Hampshire, and you might have a working allegory. As it is, Miller's play is an early example of the distinguishing characteristic of the modern Western left: its hermetically sealed parochialism. His genius was to give his fellow lefties what's become their most cherished article of faith -- that any kind of urgent national defense is, by definition, paranoid and hysterical. It was untrue in the '50s, and it's untrue today. Indeed, the hysteria about hysteria -- the ''criminalization'' of ''dissent'' -- is far more hysterical than the hysteria about Reds."

[freebilly]

The writing in a Miller Beer commercial is better than the writing in a Miller play....