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Arthur Miller: Collected Plays 1987–2004, with Stage and Radio Plays of the 1930s & 40s

Edited by Tony Kushner

For Arthur Miller’s centenary in 2015, The Library of America completes its definitive edition of the plays

Overview
Table of Contents

Overview

Interviews Arthur Miller at 100: a “loving embrace of humanity’s frailties”
January 27, 2016

This third and final volume in The Library of America’s definitive edition of Arthur Miller’s plays gathers eleven memorable later works that reveal him testing the boundaries of his art and continuing to experiment with new forms and styles. As a special feature, it also includes eight rediscovered plays from the 1930s and 40s, all published here for the first time: six radio dramas written for broadcast during World War II and two apprentice stage plays, selected by volume editor Tony Kushner.

Miller’s astonishing range is everywhere on display in this collection. It opens with a pair of austere, elegiac one-act meditations on memory and loss, I Can’t Remember Anything and Clara, originally performed in 1987 as a double bill entitled “Danger: Memory!” Following these is a history play on an epic scale—The Golden Years, about the fall of Montezuma, written early in Miller’s career and revised by him in 1987 for BBC radio—and the vividly contemporary, tightly plotted crime thriller Almost Everybody Wins (filmed as Everybody Wins in 1990). The Ride Down Mt. Morgan (1991), Miller’s last play for Broadway, puts a bigamist center stage for a meditation on the limits of love and forgiveness.

In The Last Yankee (1993), two husbands meet in the waiting room of a psychiatric hospital where their wives are patients, and all four are changed by their encounter. Broken Glass (1994) reflects on the relationship between public events, private lives, and personal responsibility in the wake of the Nazi Kristallnacht. The Ryan Interview (1995) and Mr. Peters’ Connections (1998) offer poignant takes on growing old. Resurrection Blues (2002), a wildly satirical broadside aimed at what Miller felt to be an increasingly absurd media culture, follows an American movie crew traveling to a banana republic where they hope to film a live crucifixion. Finishing the Picture (2004), loosely based on events around the filming of The Misfits, in 1960, with Marilyn Monroe, was Miller’s last play and in many ways his most experimental.

Miller made his professional debut during World War II as a radio playwright. Published here for the first time are six wartime radio dramas, including Thunder from the Mountains, which starred Orson Welles, and Mare Island and Back, about wounded veterans of the war in the Pacific. Also newly published are two of his apprentice stage plays: The Grass Still Grows (1939), a lovingly detailed comedy about a family in financial distress, and his dark, flawed, ambitious underworld drama The Half-Bridge (1942).

The volume concludes with a selection of Miller’s prose reflections on his late plays, among them “On Screenwriting and Language” (about Almost Everybody Wins) and “About Theatre Language” (on The Last Yankee).

Tony Kushner, editor, is one of America’s most acclaimed playwrights. He has won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama (for Angels in America: Millennium Approaches), two Tony Awards for Best Play, two Obie Awards, and two Drama Desk Awards; his screenplay for the film Lincoln was nominated for an Academy Award. Mr. Kushner’s writings have appeared in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, The Nation, and The Advocate.

This Library of America series edition is printed on acid-free paper and features Smyth-sewn binding, a full cloth cover, and a ribbon marker.

This volume is available for adoption in the Guardian of American Letters Fund.
Table of Contents

I Can’t Remember Anything (1987)
Clara (1987)
The Golden Years (1941; revised 1987)
Almost Everybody Wins (1984/1990)
The Ride Down Mt. Morgan (1991)
The Last Yankee (1993)
Broken Glass (1994)
The Ryan Interview, or How It Was Around Here (1995)
Mr. Peters’ Connections (1998)
Resurrection Blues (2002)
Finishing the Picture (2004)

Early Plays
The Grass Still Grows (1939)
The Half-Bridge (1942)

Radio Plays
Captain Paul (1941)
Buffalo Bill Disremembers (1941)
The Battle of the Ovens (1942)
Thunder from the Mountains (1942)
Glider Doctor (1944)
Mare Island and Back (1945)

Notes and Essays on the Plays
On Screenwriting and Language (Almost Everybody Wins)
Author’s Note (Almost Everybody Wins)
About Theatre Language (The Last Yankee)
Preface (Mr. Peters’ Connections)

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ISBN: 978-1-59853-353-8 901 pages

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N° 261 Library of America Series

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