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.