Mr. Peters' Connections (Plays, Penguin)
At the age of 84, 50 years after he received the Pulitzer Prize for Death of a Salesman, Miller remains the premiere living American dramatist and one of the three or four greatest of this century. This play, which debuted Off Broadway last year with Peter Falk in the title role, is Miller's strongest play in 30 years. Effectively using absurdist techniques, Miller places Mr. Peters, a retired pilot, in an abandoned bar, where he encounters his deceased brother, an ex-lover and the man he imagines she might have married had she lived, his daughter and her boyfriend, his wife, and a bag lady who, like most of the other characters, may be a figment of Peters's imagination. With all of them, he seeks connection and, if possible, an answer to the question, "What is the subject?"Aor, indeed, whether we even need a subject any longer. These existential questions are old ones; Miller gives them stunning dramatic shape and force. Essential for all American literature collections.ARobert W. Melton, Univ. of Kansas, LawrenceCopyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.