Arthur Miller's 1968 play The Price isn't performed very often, so when it does get a production, you're going to want to see it.
The intimate play is perhaps more at home in a smaller, Off-Broadway house. Seth Tyler Black's set design packs the stage with antiques that even spill into the audience. The first row, which is billed as "immersive" seating is made up of lush, antique-looking chairs much like those up on stage.
While this production is hardly "immersive" in the traditional sense, it does allow the audience to get close to the action, enabling them to see some amazing acting, particularly by Bill Barry, who plays Victor Franz. Once a budding scientist who experimented with radios in his youth, Victor left college to take care of his father after the stock market collapsed in 1929.
Victor's brother Walter, played by Cullen Wheeler, made different choices after the crash, finishing medical school and becoming a financially successful doctor. While Victor seems to have made the more principled decision, the more the audience learns, the more they come to realize that the truth is more complicated. Both brothers, in fact, have paid a price for choices they made.
Though Victor has spent his entire career as a beat cop, never rising very high due to his refusal to compromise on his principles, he has been able to build a family with his wife Esther, played by Janelle Farias Sando. Walter, on the other hand, is divorced and estranged from his children, though now with plenty of money, which he is willing to share with Victor, if he'll only take it.
There is of course plenty of history between the brothers that tends to make negotiation over every dollar particularly complicated. Into this family morass walks Gregory Solomon, played by Mike Durkin. A 90-year-old used furniture dealer, Solomon has seen more of the world than anyone else in the play.
Asked to purchase the antique furniture of Victor and Walter's parents, the appropriately named Solomon is more than happy to buy the family's unwanted treasures and make a nice profit, but he is also keen on getting Victor to look beyond the dollar value of everything.
Director Noelle McGrath, who is better known as an actor, coached some lovely performances out of the cast. If you have a chance to see the production, go.
