ThePrice

About The Play

The set of this Broadway Tony Award-winning drama is a city loft filled with old
furniture. Victor, a policeman, enters and looks around with a nostalgic air. His
wife Esther enters and their conversation fills in the background for the story.
They have come to the loft to meet with an antique dealer to dispose of Victor's
father's furniture. Victor has an estranged brother, Walter, who is a well-to-do
doctor, and the relationship between Esther and Victor is not particularly
comfortable either. Threads of old hurts, resentments and disappointments begin
to surface.

Through passionate conversations (the first the two brothers have had in 16
years), deep-seated difficulties are revealed, offering examples of those things
which keep people sad, distanced and angry.

Gregory Solomon, the grizzled old antique dealer displays both wisdom and wit.
His prelude to making an offer on the furniture is both a rationalization for his
price (which he is agonizingly slow to name) and a discourse on many important
truths of life. "The whole thing is a viewpoint. It's a mental world," Gregory
tells Victor.

Arthur Miller makes astute observations of human nature in this play.