Incident at Vichy

Description

Jew is only the name we give to that stranger. Each man has his Jew; it is the other. And the Jews have their Jews. Arthur Miller's largely forgotten masterpiece, Incident at Vichy is a prescient examination of the evil that exists in us all, inspired by a real-life incident in France in which a Gentile gave a Jew his identity pass during a check, which would have resulted in the Jew otherwise being sent to a concentration camp. This Methuen Drama Student Edition of the play includes commentary and notes by Joshua Polster, Emerson College, US, which investigate the politics of the play in the context of the African-American civil rights movement happening at the time; the Vietnam War; The House Committee on Un-American Activities; and the murder of Kitty Genovese, as well as exploring Miller's own relationships that were central to the play including with psychoanalyst Dr Rudolf Loewenstein, his wife Inge Morath and his friend Elia Kazan.

Arthur Miller (1915-2005) was arguably the greatest American playwright of the twentieth century. His most famous work for the stage includes Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, All My Sons and A View from the Bridge. Six volumes of his plays and a volume of his theatre essays are published by Methuen Drama. Joshua Polster is Associate Professor at Emerson College, USA, and a member of the editorial board for The Arthur Miller Journal. He was President of the Arthur Miller Society and currently serves on their Board of Directors. He is the author of Reinterpreting the Plays of Arthur Miller, Stages of Engagement: US Theater and Performance from 1898-1949 and the editor of The Routledge Anthology of US Drama. Susan C. W. Abbotson is Professor of Dramatic Literature at Rhode Island College, USA.

This is buried treasure. * Time Out *