A parent’s death forces a reevaluation of life’s choices in a lesser-known Arthur Miller play at the Camelot Theatre

By Lucie K. Scheuer for Ashland.news

There’s a scene in Arthur Miller’s sometimes biting, sometimes illuminating drama, “The Price,” in which Esther Franz, the exasperated wife of New York city policeman Victor Franz, turns to him and says, “It is like we were never about anything; we were always about to be!”

There you have the crux of Miller’s two-act, two-hour portrait of a husband, his wife and his brother, caught up in in a classic, emotionally triggering family situation, which forces them to finally face the life choices they’ve made.

There’s a reason Arthur Miller is considered one of America’s greatest playwrights. He knew that behind the seemingly mundane, everyday lives of simple people, lies the inner lives of complex human beings, grappling with decisions based on fear and denial, trying to make sense of it all. There’s a precise, well-played and measured interpretation of Miller’s lesser-produced work on this subject, entitled “The Price,” on a short run at the Camelot Theatre in Talent through March 2.

The first act takes a while to unfold. We find ourselves with this family, in a New York city walk-up, in an attic full of furniture, that also appears to hold Victor Franz’ regrets and memories. He is there to sell off his parent’s furniture and antiques. His wife soon joins him. It isn’t long before Gregory Soloman, a wily estate dealer, shows up to appraise and offer a deal to take the Depression-era items off their hands.

Actor Jeff McCamish has adequately captured the compromised, anguished, anxiety-ridden Victor Franz, a man who is somewhat self-loathing, who has been afraid to take risks in life. McCamish has a lot of dialog to make his way through. Most times his articulation is clear but there are others where he offers the lines too quickly, muffling them. Easily remedied if he slows down.

The situation becomes more intense when Esther Franz, played by a frank, no-holds-barred Vicki Richardson, begins to admonish him for his lack of decision-making throughout their marriage and for using the excuse of having to take care of his aging father. She’s angry and she feels let down. We feel her frustration. We get that somehow, as much as she would like to leave, on some level, she still loves him.

Charles Isen superbly plays the Russian-Jewish appraiser Mr. Solomon, who is wise and a bit conniving. Miller has written the character as a sort of catalyst for the accusations that later unfold between Victor Franz and his more successful, but estranged brother. Solomon is an archetypal character; he is a bit of a sage but at the same time a master manipulator. Solomon’s hemming and hawing becomes a bit tedious, but that’s on Arthur Miller.

Finally, there’s Walter Franz, Victor’s brother played by Sean Warren. Warren adds just the right amount of plausible deniability to the situation, when Victor accuses him of abandoning him and their father.

Director Gwen Overland clearly understands the dysfunctional family dynamics that can arise when families gather to divide parent’s assets. She also understands Miller, because the actors uncover his family’s existential crisis so well.

The staging and productions values, lighting, sound, costumes provide a familiar backdrop upon which this family’s drama unfolds. In the end, we are ultimately responsible for the decisions we make in life but those decisions can have life-altering ramifications when driven by misperceptions, guilt, codependency and fear.

Gregory Solomon, appraises the situation well when he says it doesn’t matter what you do in life, if you’re not doing the things you love. Some stumble upon those things. Some never discover them. Other’s discover “it’s never too late to start over.”

Ashland resident Lucie K. Scheuer is a former copy editor and staff writer with the Los Angeles Times, where her work included features, reviews and a column on films in production. Email her at [email protected].