EVER since his marriage to Marilyn Monroe, Arthur Miller seems to have
been engaged in an obsessive form of self-justification about what went
wrong in their marriage and by wider implication as to what goes wrong
between men and women. The Last Yankee, his latest play, is no exception
despite David Thacker's typically tender production.
Thacker's record of directing Miller plays has been outstanding during
his eight-year tenure at the Young Vic and this swansong production
bears all his hallmarks: haunting music (suggestive of unimaginable
sadness), minimalist stage set, and acting of a precision and intensity
that never lets you off the hook.
But therein lies the rub. This is a play whose emotional manipulation
is more apparently obvious than usual and, at the same time, remains
vague at its deepest core.
Ostensibly about disappointment though as much about hope and trust,
The Last Yankee is Miller at his most irritating: inciteful, affecting,
but falsely compassionate as we watch two couples battling to save their
marriages through the ''breakdowns'' of two wives.
What Miller lets us also see, without taking the final plunge as Ibsen
does in A Doll's House, is that what is really under the hammer are the
attitudes of the two husbands -- the repressive disdain of conservative
businessman Frick (David Healy) in contrast to Peter Davison's
infinitely sympathetic Leroy (the last Yankee), a loyal, long-suffering
carpenter father of seven who emerges as ''our hero''.
Zoe Wanamaker and Helen Burns as the wives pull all the right
heartstrings but it's a bit like biting into a marshmallow. Sweet and
mushy but no centre.
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