THE MAN WHO HAD ALL THE LUCK. To 14 February.
Edinburgh.
THE MAN WHO HAD ALL THE LUCK
by Arthur Miller.
Royal Lyceum Theatre To 14 February 2009.
Tue-Sat 7.45pm Mat 21, 24, 28, 31 Jan, 4, 7 Feb 2.30pm.
Audio-described 29 Jan, 31 Jan 2.30pm (+Touch Tour 12.30pm).
BSL Signed 4 Feb 7.45pm.
Post-show D8iscussion 27 Jan.
Post-Show Theatre Discussion Group 5.15pm 4 Feb.
Runs 2hr 20min One interval.
TICKETS: 0131 248 4848.
www.lyceum.org.uk/luck
Review: Timothy Ramsden 17 January.
.
High-quality revival that’s a matter of skill rather than luck.
All it needs is Mephistopheles. Then Arthur Miller’s 1944 play would be in the Faustian-pact tradition, as self-taught mechanic David Beeves gains material success while his innards are gnawed by doubt and encroaching despair.
For luck leaves David without a sense of self. It controls his life as he loses his moral innocence. Devoid of will, he has his first economy with the truth when he allows others to believe he’s mended a luxury car actually fixed through the near-miraculous early-morning visit of a foreign mechanic.
That job brings lucrative contracts to the run-down barn where he repairs autos. It’s an environment admirably caught in the detritus around Michael Taylor’s set, later contrasted by the clean-lined comfort of the Beeves’ home.
Philip Cumbus admirably shows David’s shift from frank to fraught, success washing-in guilt and fear of eventual failure, as he threshes around for some part of his advancement he can claim as his own. By the end this obsession threatens to eat up his marriage, while he lets down friend and benefactor Dan Dibble (Richard Addison understatedly convincing as this terse and grizzled, self-made man).
There are heavy-handed moments in a few performances. But they hardly matter in John Dove’s finely-wrought revival. Kim Gerard is strong as David’s wife, like others to come in Miller’s plays happy in her marriage yet anxious for her husband, and there’s a beautifully-balanced relationship between Cumnus’ Beeves and Greg Powrie’s Gustav, the Austrian migrant who claims nothing yet sees all, takes life as it comes and moves on when the time’s right.
If Miller was partly working out his own sense of guilt, the play’s failure on Broadway might seem fittingly mirrored when disaster apparently undoes its protagonist. But Beeves turns out lucky yet again; for once because of his own action. And when Miller had spent a couple of years licking his wounds after the play’s four performances, director Harold Clurman read the script. Impressed, he asked Miller for another play, thereby leading to the writing of All My Sons. Some people have all the luck. And some, of course, deserve it.
David Beeves: Philip Cumbus.
J B Feller: Andrew Vincent.
Shory: Matthew Pidgeon.
Aunt Belle: Isabella Jarrett.
Patterson Beeves: Ron Donachie.
Amos Beeves: Perri Snowdon.
Hester Falk: Kim Gerard.
Dan Dibble: Richard Addison.
Gustav Eberson: Greg Powrie.
Andrew Falk/Augie Belfast: Peter Harding.
Director: John Dove.
Designer: Michael Taylor.
Lighting: Jeanine Davies.
Dialect coach: Lynne Bains.
2009-01-21 23:39:39