Arthur Miller, John Lahr
Arthur Miller, John Lahr
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Arthur Miller
American Witness

Author: John Lahr

Narrator: John Rubinstein

Unabridged: 8 hr 48 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 11/01/2022

Synopsis

A distinguished theater critic brings twentieth-century playwright Arthur Miller’s dramatic story to life with bold and revealing new insights.John Lahr brings unique perspective to the life of Arthur Miller (1915–2005), the playwright who almost single-handedly propelled twentieth-century American theater to a new level of cultural sophistication.This book, organized around the fault lines of Miller’s life—his family, the Great Depression, the rise of fascism, Elia Kazan and the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Marilyn Monroe, Vietnam, and the rise and fall of Miller’s role as a public intellectual—demonstrates the synergy between Arthur Miller’s psychology and his plays.Concentrating largely on Miller’s most prolific decades of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, Lahr probes Miller’s early playwriting failures; his work writing radio plays during World War II after being rejected for military service; his only novel, Focus; and his succession of award-winning and canonical plays that include All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, and The Crucible, providing an original interpretation of Miller’s work and his personality.

About John Lahr

John Lahr has been a contributor to the New Yorker since 1991, where for twenty-one years he was its senior drama critic. He is the author of eighteen books, including Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography.

About John Rubinstein

John Rubinstein is an actor, composer, and director who won a Tony Award for his starring role in Broadway’s Children of a Lesser God. He has narrated dozens of audiobooks, earning several AudioFile Earphones Awards and being named a finalist for the prestigious Audie Award for best narration in 2013.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Glenn

Excellent insights and sharp, stimulating writing make this book important to anyone interested in American drama or Arthur Miller. Miller’s masterpieces came at the start of his career, and Lahr shows how crucial autobiography was to Miller’s work. Miller’s plays are performed second only to Shakes......more

Goodreads review by James

This is the third book I have read in the Jewish Lives Series from Yale University Press and a wonderful addition it is. Miller was one of Americas premier playwrights. He is known for his plays, ALL MY SONS, DEATH OF A SALESMAN and THE CRUCIBLE among others. Before reading this, I did not know how......more

Goodreads review by David

Weighing in at about a third the size of the massive, prize-winning biography of Tennessee Williams he published in 2014, John Lahr’s ARTHUR MILLER: AMERICAN WITNESS nonetheless ably covers the critical aspects of Miller’s life that shaped his plays. I should note right off that Lahr devotes more at......more

Goodreads review by Stephanie

I was utterly FASCINATED to read this marvelous biography of one of the truly great playwrights. Having access to a great deal of personal material, certainly Miller's own memoirs, and speaking to many people who knew him, John Lahr gives such a deep and real portrait of the forces which shaped the......more

Goodreads review by Charles

Lahr is a superior biographer of playwrights . His Orton and Williams books are solid introductions to both men’s lives and works . This Miller biography is below his usual standards . It is marred by factual errors such as stating Monroe’s death was in January 1962 when it was on August 4, 1962 . S......more

Quotes

“With rapt enthusiasm and fine attention to detail, narrator John Rubinstein…delivers this production as a critical appreciation and as a celebration of a singular and wholly American talent.” AudioFile

“This succinct and gorgeously written portrait offers a keen psychological appraisal of Miller’s works and of Miller himself.” Boston Globe

“Lahr’s slender, sharp biography offers an engaging account of the playwright’s life…[and] provides a penetrating interpretation of Arthur Miller’s canonical works.” Christian Science Monitor

“Lahr’s cogent analyses are revelatory but not surgical, and his sympathy never cloys…a critic who understands drama on the page and in the house.” Wall Street Journal

“Lahr, a prominent theater critic, delivers a no-filler biography that still leaves room for his keen critical insights.” East Hampton Star (New York)

“Lahr shines in this searching account…Lahr’s at his best using small moments to illuminate his subject…It’s a great introduction to a giant of American letters.” Publishers Weekly

“Shows the ways in which [Miller’s] truth-seeking spirit manifested itself in one of the most storied playwriting careers ever…[and] how Miller’s experiences informed plays such as The Golden Years, The Price, The Crucible, and the Pulitzer-winning Salesman.” Kirkus Reviews

“Utterly captivating.” Hilton Als, Pulitzer Prize–winning essayist and author

“Lahr lets us see the great American playwright with new eyes…No one writes more perceptively about the twentieth century theater than John Lahr.” John Guare, playwright, author of Six Degrees of Separation  

“Deeply readable and entertaining…Offers unique insight into how Miller’s mind works and how the details of his biography impacted his body of work.” Sarah Ruhl, playwright and MacArthur Fellow

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