FROM THE ARCHIVES:The first production of Arthur Miller's
Death of a Salesmanin Ireland threatened drama on the streets outside the theatre, as this Irishman's Diary recorded. –
JOE JOYCE
THE OPENING of Death of a Salesmanat the Gaiety Theatre last Monday night was reminiscent of the good old times to veteran Dublin theatre-goers. As the first-nighters crowded down South King Street they saw three or four Civic Guards standing around with that air of innocent non-expectation that earmarks Guards who have been warned that something is about to happen calculated to lead to a breach of the peace. The experienced licked their chops and said knowingly: "Hah, a demonstration! D'you remember the fun and games at The Playboyand The Plough?"
The chop-lickers were disappointed. There was no demonstration. Instead, individual first-nighters were approached by respectably dressed and silent young men who handed them pamphlets bearing the imprimatur of an organisation called “The Catholic Cinema and Theatre Patrons’ Association.”
It so happened that the curtain arose late. The delay gave those members of the audience who were not preoccupied in looking at each other, a chance to look at the pamphlets. They read: "According to the Fifth Report of the Senate Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities in California, Arthur Miller (author of Death of a Salesman) is a member of the following organisations."
The appended organisations included: American Youth for Democracy; Contemporary Writers; Civil Rights Congress; People’s Institute of Applied Religion, Inc (only an American could think of that one!); Progressive Citizens of America; Stage for Action; World Federation of Democratic Youth and the Voice of Freedom Committee, all of which were stated to have been “cited as subversive by the California Committee on Un-American Activities.”
A great many people at this point began to wonder how Mr. Miller, ever found the time to write even one play. Then the curtain went up, and they waited for the Red sparks to start flying.
Again, the sensationally -minded were disappointed. No fiery propaganda was provided. Das Kapital, indeed, was not mentioned once.
At the interval, it was rumoured that the management had been written to by the Catholic Cinema and Theatre Patrons’ Association with the request that Mr. Miller’s play should not be produced in Dublin, since Mr. Miller was a Communist – something that had not been mentioned in such forthright terms in the pamphlet.
When the final curtain fell, the playgoers went home, satisfied that they had seen an unusually good play. The next morning, a critic who had not read the C.C. and T.P.A.'s leaflet before he wrote his review said that Death of a Salesmanshowed there was no reward for those whose life was devoted to Mammon.
http://url.ie/adkr