Volume 3, Number 11 · January 14, 1965
Arthur Miller and the Fallacy of Profundity
By Philip Rahv
Incident at Vichy
by Arthur Miller
Repertory Theatre at Lincoln Center
In his second play, Incident at Vichy, at the Repertory Theatre of Lincoln Center (still temporarily housed in Washington Square), Arthur Miller recovers somewhat, even if only to a limited extent, from the disaster of After the Fall, a piece so pretentious and defensive that virtually nothing good can be said about it. In an openly subjective or confessional mood, bringing his own life-behavior into question, Miller is more pitiable than ingratiating. In this new play, however, what is perceptible is not callow subjectivity but an overstrain of intellectual capacity. Still, its director, Harold Clurman, has very ably succeeded, in so far as it was at all within his power, in staving off some of the hazards of the author's ideological ambition and the frequent sententiousness of his language.
Review, 2295 words
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