Next in my Daily Book Excerpt:
Next play on the script shelf:
After the Fall: A Play in Two Acts (Penguin Plays) by Arthur Miller. This play, while not his best, is very near to my heart – because of my experiences playing Maggie – one of my biggest challenges, and what a triumph! I described it all here – a couple days after Miller died. After the Fall was the play Miller wrote after Marilyn Monroe’s death – and although he always said that it is fiction, and not based on his marriage – nobody believed him. It’s about a marriage between a child-like bombshell and a tortured intellectual. The bombshell, Maggie, is also a big star. Not an actress, like Marilyn – but a singer. Quentin becomes wrapped up in this woman, and also gets a kind of svengali fantasy going on … He wants to heal her, he wants her to be happy, he wants her to transform … but of course, the damage was done to this poor creature long long ago. Maggie ends up despising Quentin for his superior attitude and his detachment … something that he can’t seem to break out of … and she ends up taking an overdose of pills and dying. (Fiction, Arthur?)
The first production of this was directed by Elia Kazan and it starred Jason Robards and Barbara Loden (Kazan’s wife, at the time). It was going to be the premiere production of America’s very first repertory company: Lincoln Center Repertory. (The story of the short-lived theatre company is very sad.) After the Fall was not only its first production, but it was also its last. The play was controversial – everyone wanted to see it for prurient reasons – Barbara Loden insisted on wearing a platinum wig (against Arthur Miller’s wishes). People came looking for Marilyn Monroe, and of course nobody but Marilyn is Marilyn. The play is VERY wordy. Basically, the way I see it is: it is Arthur Miller’s purging of his own guilt for not being able to save his wife. He was explaining himself to the audience. “This is how it really was!!! It’s not my fault!!!!” And Miller always had a lecturing didact in him – Quentin comes off as a superior know-it-all drip, and Maggie comes off as deeply misunderstood, and rightfully suspicious of his motives.
It’s not a perfect work, but I love it deeply. I loved working on it.
EXCERPT FROM After the Fall: A Play in Two Acts (Penguin Plays) by Arthur Miller
QUENTIN. By the ocean. That cottage. That night. The last night.
Maggie in a rumpled wrapper, a bottle in her hand, her hair in snags over her face, staggers out to the edge of the pier and stands in the sound of the surf. Now she starts to topple over the edge of the pier, and he rushes to her and holds her in his hands. Maggie turns around and they embrace. Now the sound of jazz from within is heard, softly.
MAGGIE. You were loved, Quentin; no man was ever loved like you.
QUENTIN. [releasing her] Carrie tell you I called? My plane couldn’t take off all day —
MAGGIE. [drunk, but aware] I was going to kill myself just now. [He is silent] Or don’t you believe that either?
QUENTIN. [with an absolute calm, a distance, but without hostility] I saved you twice, why shouldn’t I believe it? [going toward her] This dampness is bad for your throat, you oughtn’t be out here.
MAGGIE. [she defiantly sits, her legs dangling] Where’ve you been?
QUENTIN. [going upstage, removing his jacket] I’ve been in Chicago. I told you. The Hathaway estate.
MAGGIE. [with a sneer] Estates!
QUENTIN. Well, I have to pay some of our debts before I save the world. [He removes his hat and puts it on bureau box; sits and removes a shoe]
MAGGIE. [from the pier] Didn’t you hear what I told you?
QUENTIN. I heard it. I’m not coming out there, Maggie, it’s too wet.
[She looks toward him, gets up, unsteadily, enters the room]
MAGGIE. I didn’t go to rehearsal today.
QUENTIN. I didn’t think you did.
MAGGIE. And I called the network that I’m not finishing that stupid show. I’m an artist! And I don’t have to do stupid shows, no matter what contract you made!
QUENTIN. I’m very tired, Maggie. I’ll sleep in the living room. Good night. [He stands and starts out upstage]
MAGGIE. What is this?
[Pause. He turns back to her from the exit.]
QUENTIN. I’ve been fired.
MAGGIE. You’re not fired.
QUENTIN. I didn’t expect you to take it seriously, but it is to me; I can’t make a decision any more without something sits up inside me and busts out laughing.
MAGGIE. That’s my fault, huh?
[Slight pause. Then he resolves]
QUENTIN. Look, dear, it’s gone way past blame or justifying ourselves, I … talked to your doctor this afternoon.
MAGGIE. [stiffening with fear and suspicion] About what?
QUENTIN. You want to die, Maggie, and I really don’t know how to prevent it. But it struck me that I have been playing with your life out of some idiotic hope of some kind that you’d come out of this endless spell. But there’s only one hope, dear — you’ve got to start to look at what you’re doing.
MAGGIE. You going to put me away somewhere. Is that it?
QUENTIN. Your doctor’s trying to get a plane up here tonight; you settle it with him.
MAGGIE. You’re not going to put me anywhere, mister. [She opens the pill bottle]
QUENTIN. You have to be supervised, Maggie. [She swallows pills] Now listen to me while you can still hear. If you start going under tonight I’m calling the ambulance. I haven’t the strength to go through that alone again. I’m not protecting you from the newspapers any more, Maggie, and the hospital means a headline. [She raises the whiskey bottle to drink] You’ve got to start facing the consequences of your actions, Maggie. [She drinks whiskey] Okay. I’ll tell Carrie to call the ambulance as soon as she sees the signs. I’m going to sleep at the inn. [He gets his jacket]
MAGGIE. Don’t sleep at the inn!
QUENTIN. Then put that stuff away and go to sleep.
MAGGIE. [afraid he is leaving, she tries to smooth her tangled hair] Could you … stay five minutes?
QUENTIN. Yes. [He returns]
MAGGIE. You can even have the bottle if you want. I won’t take any more. [She puts the pill bottle on the bed before him]
QUENTIN. [against his wish to take it] I don’t want the bottle.
MAGGIE. Member how used talk to me till I fell asleep?
QUENTIN. Maggie, I’ve sat beside you in darkened rooms for days and weeks at a time, and my office looking high and low for me —
MAGGIE. No, you lost patience with me.
QUENTIN. [after a slight pause] That’s right, yes.
MAGGIE. So you lied, right?
QUENTIN. Yes, I lied. Every day. We are all separate people. I tried not to be, but finally one is — a separate person. I have to survive too, honey.
MAGGIE. So where you going to put me?
QUENTIN. [trying not to break] You discuss that with your doctor.
MAGGIE. But if you loved me …
QUENTIN. But how would you know, Maggie? Do you know any more who I am? Aside from my name? I’m all the evil in the world, aren’t I? All the betrayal, the broken hopes, the murderous revenge? [She pours pills into her hand, and he stands. Now fear is in his voice.] A suicide kills two people, Maggie, that’s what it’s for! So I’m removing myself, and perhaps it will lose its point.
It’s beautiful and haunting.One of my favourite plays.