MILLER SPARES NO ONE BUT ALSO WRITES WITH A FINE HUMAN POINT OF VIEW THAT REALLY
DIGS DEEP TO REVEAL THE HUMANITY OF ALL THE CHARACTERS IN THIS HORRIFIC SITUATION.
S: What attracted you to Incident at Vichy?
MW: There are many things that draw me to Incident at Vichy.
S: How do you approach this kind of play, one that deals with
such a dark period in history?
One is the fact that it was a work that was deeply personal and
MW: It fascinates me that Miller is considered the “political”
urgent to Arthur Miller when he wrote the play. I think to work
playwright among the giants of the twentieth century and
on a play by Arthur Miller that is not known to audiences – they
Tennessee Williams was always considered the playwright of the
may have heard of it, perhaps read it, or glimpsed at an early-
personal, the sensual, of desire. What’s amazing and fun for me,
seventies television production, but have not experienced it
having worked on so many Williams’ plays, is always to find the
vitally in a recent production – it’s a really exciting opportunity.
political in Williams’ personal and then to always see the
Also, I’m drawn to the roles he created in the play. This drama,
immense personal humanity in Arthur Miller’s plays. I don’t think
unlike maybe some of Miller’s other plays, is truly an ensemble
they’re agitprop polemics at all. In The Crucible, Elizabeth
piece. It’s an opportunity to put together a really distinguished
Proctor – having been confronted that her husband has had an
company of actors playing a variety of gritty, tenacious, articulate
affair, and all the things that could rip a marriage in two – looks
men – most of them very young, too, most of them in their twen-
at him and says, “You’re a good man, John Proctor. You’re a good
ties and thirties – that are at this visceral fulcrum point in their life
man.” I think Miller is asking us to really think about what defines
and in the life of western civilization... And we see these men in
goodness, what does goodness really mean? As a director,
particular, not just the ones that are being interrogated, but also
I approach this kind of play by getting deep into the characters
the ones that are being charged to carry out this inquest, this
and the reality of their circumstances, their psychology, their
extermination of life – I find it really beautiful that Miller was able
history, and finding where that dramatically crashes with the
to get inside not only those who are being pressed upo