Customer Reviews

After the Fall (Library Edition Audio CDs)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Arthur Miller, having divorced actress Marilyn Monroe and married photographer Inge Morath, and in the aftermath of Monroe's still-controversial death, wrote this as part catharsis and part explanation of the recent events in his past. Treating Monroe as it does, it inspired a groundswell of revulsion for Miller that after forty years has not fully abated.

Nonetheless, this is a fascinating work that on its own merits has some appeal.

Everyone's read Death of a Salesman and The Crucible, myself included... but in my opinion, this play is Miller's most exceptional work! It is presented in a much less formulaic, more postmodern arrangement than his other works. He tackles goodness and sin in a manner uniquely his own, examining what modern man must seek out in life. He offers a hope for humankind which can only be achieved by the acknowledgement that we all exist "after the fall" from innocence and the necessity of each of us to relearn to live and to love in our way.

Enthralled by Anthony LaPaglia drawl and Amy Brennemann's squeaky blonde (I know, it sounds strange but it's really all there), I loved these CDs. The brilliant text of Arthur Miller is brought to life. Rarely put on, this story of man, searching for himself and for a woman he will not repeat the same mistakes with, is fascinating and sad. It's also disturbing and moving that an author should commit to paper, and thusly to posterity and for everyone to read, his own questions and failings. Because the line is terribly thin. Miller shows at the seams of every scene. It's him fighting with Marylin, it's him redeaming God know what past... It's good. Try it.

I seem to remember Arthur Miller dismissing the notion that this Book is biographical, but it certainly reads that way....
One can not help but draw comparison to marilyn monroe from
the maggie character...in a most unfavorable way.
The main character's relationship with the various characters in this book reveal Arthur Millers feelings about his own Life...it's almost like a comment on his marriage to the movie legend and an explanation what happened to her.
As a Marilyn fan i find this to be an interesting read and a glimpse into Arthur Miller's side of it all.

With themes such as innocence, responsibility, self-examination, betrayal, and more, this is a far reaching, hard hitting play. A semi-autobiography, this play works on several levels; it breaks the fourth wall, but is also powerful outside the narration, it has a complex theme that is slowly discovered, but it's scenes are urgent andeffective. A great play for a casual read, an amazing source of scenes, and a wonderful play for production

Arthur Miller's "After the Fall" takes the form of an investigation into the forces which give rise to incomplete and destructive human relationships. Its protagonist, Quentin, in whose mind the play is enacted, subscribes to a simple credo: "You tell the truth, even against yourself." The play is fabricated as a trial or, more fittingly, an inquest in which the moralist, Quentin, sits in judgment upon his own conscience, his own values, his own actions.

Quentin, now retired from the practice of law, examines and cross-examines all aspects of his being: his distorted emotions, marital complexities, and other intimate struggles. The result is that "After the Fall" becomes a big, demanding drama. When staged, the play typically occupies a full three and a half hours, time spent in a relentless search for answers. Has Quentin's life been lived in good faith? Can, in his remaining years, he reach beyond self-condemnation to some measure of hope? A tortured process of self-discovery finds him fighting against innate fear, his unwillingness to unearth what Miller labels "the seeds of his own destruction." It is a fundamental, personal need to know that serves as the backbone of this otherwise a loosely structured play. Whether you are reading the dialog and stage direction on the page, or are sitting in a theater audience, you will likely be engrossed in his journey, since this is your journey too.

For the personal is the universal. At the same time as we are learning of intimate events in Quentin's life, a universal drama unfolds. Miller's intent is for "After the Fall" to present a broad study of mankind's terrible predisposition to cruelty, our evasions of responsibility, and our final seizure by remorse. After wildly ranging over times past, the play returns us to the present where Quentin is considering marrying a German woman who survived the Holocaust -- an experience that permitted her to accept human blindness and failures. She is the catalyst helping him universalize his personal predicament. The climactic scene in this process finds Quentin pausing in the shadow of an imagined concentration camp tower looming over his meager self. He asks: "Who can be innocent again on this mountain of skulls? I tell you what I know! My brothers died here . . . but my brothers built this place; our hearts have cut these stones! And what's the cure!"

It is in "After the Fall" that Miller strives, with a greater urgency than in any of his other theater works, to enter into a dialog with essential works of twentieth-century thought and literature. Consider "Gerontion" (1920), in which T.S. Eliot posed the key question: "After such knowledge, what forgiveness?" Notice how, at the close of "After the Fall," Quentin seemingly confronts Eliot's entreaty: "Is the knowing all? And the wish to kill is never killed, but with some gift of courage one may look into its face when it appears, and with a stroke of love -- as to an idiot in the house -- forgive it; again and again . . . forever?"

Again and again: There was something in Miller's plea that reminded me of words uttered just a few years after the opening of "After the Fall." Before a stunned audience in Indianapolis, Indiana, on an evening in 1968 when news spread of the Rev. Martin Luther King's assassination, Robert F. Kennedy spoke. Without notes, at first haltingly but then with earned authority, Kennedy urged upon us this credo:

"We have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond, to go beyond these rather difficult times . . . . Aeschylus once wrote: `Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom, through the awful grace of god.' What we need . . . is not division . . . not hatred . . . not violence and lawlessness . . . but is love and wisdom and compassion toward one another: A feeling of justice."

This play is way too sophisticated for my tastes. I am only half-way through it and I am only going to reach the end because I am the kind of obsessive-compulsive individual who must finish a book or a movie or an audio book once I start them. I do violate this rule once in a while, but this play is too short to resist...

Anyway, I think LA Theater Works is a FANTASTIC publisher and I love most of the many plays of theirs I have listened to, but this one is above my head. I find the actors truly outstanding, but the story and the dialog are broken and confusing. Once in a while a short sequence will hit me as meaningful and compelling, but usually this is in the midst of other rather obscure dialog or monologues.

I have loved all other plays by Arthur Miller I have listened to so far, so I guess I just do not like this form or disconnected high-brow semi-autobiographical story telling. I really do not want to be dismissive. I can believe that there is much more to this play than what *I* can understand, but I just don't get it.

Arthur Miller's After the Fall is a highly autobiographical account told by a man named Quentin who has suffered through a difficult family life, two marriages, and the McCarthy Trials. It is depicted artistically by freely flowing from scene to scene with no regard to time or location, but the artistry in the continuity does not make up for the dullness of the overall story. The play reads as if this man is in a therapy session describing the painfully dull events of his life. He explains his shaky family relationships along with minor events from his childhood, his nagging first wife Louise and the attractive neighbor who made him start to think disloyally, and the struggles of co-workers faced with deciding between integrity and their careers. Although these events might seem like they could be earth-shattering, especially the McCarthy bit, Miller manages to drain them of any excitement or intrigue.

The bright spot in the play is Maggie, a highly self destructive but free spirited girl who becomes Quentin's second wife. Though when I first read the play, I had no idea of the connection, Maggie is Miller's interpretation of Marilyn Monroe. This is the sole reason that anyone who is not a fan of Miller's work would want to read this play; one gains insight into how immature and below him Miller considered Monroe to be.

If you are interested in Arthur Miller outside of his relationship with Marilyn Monroe, you might enjoy this book. If you are interested in the human mind and the way experiences shape a person, you have a slight chance of enjoying this book. If you are looking for a story with a rising action, a climax, and a fall, you probably will hate this play.

Having read most of Miller's previous work, I hold it to a high standard. "After the Fall" shows many of the simmilarities of his other works. Unlike the other ones, he is symbolically the main character here. In this work, Miller writes a cathartic explanation of his life including two failed marriages, one to Marilyn Monroe. Rather than entertaining, it comes off as rather unsettling.

The main character, Quentin narrates to the audience in the show. He is viewing his past as the various people in his life appear in a sequence of events. Through his childhood, we see hints of the origins of the problems the character faces, such as a manipulative mother. This seems to be the justification he uses for failed relationships. By Holga being the last character we see, it seems that he is insinuating that he should have never left his first wife. At the same time, he clears himself of any fault in the demise of Maggie (the veiled symbol for Marilyn Monroe).

In reality, there was a lot going on in the play. Perhaps it was even too busy. But even more worrisome is Miller's use of the stage to justify or rationalize his life. I love Miller's work. This play, which was intended to be disturbing, is disturbing in a way which Miller could have intended. It is one play the work could have gone without.

With themes such as innocence, responsibility, self-examination, betrayal, and more, this is a far reaching, hard hitting play. A semi-autobiography, this play works on several levels; it breaks the fourth wall, but is also powerful outside the narration, it has a complex theme that is slowly discovered, but it's scenes are urgent andeffective. A great play for a casual read, an amazing source of scenes, and a wonderful play for production