The Stage

The Price

Published Monday 14 March 2011 at 10:51 by Andrew Liddle

Every season at the Octagon seems to bring forth a work of classic American drama and this emotionally draining production now benefits from the authority of tradition, as well as the customary directorial genius of David Thacker.

Suzan Sylvester (Esther Franz) and Tom Mannion (Victor Franz) in The Price at the Octagon, Bolton Photo: Ian Tilton

Set in what has become a lumber room - beautifully realised in Patrick Connellan’s design - it remorselessly exposes the life lies of a quartet of contrasting New Yorkers. If they are all in denial, it is difficult to know whom to trust, which is Arthur Miller’s intention and the play’s strength.

Tom Mannion is superb as Victor, going through the gamut of emotions as the passed-over police sergeant who might have been a top scientist if he had not sacrificed his ambition to care for his father. Or is this just his cover story? Certainly that’s the suspicion of Colin Stinton’s Walter, the younger brother who became the surgeon. Yet his new-found concern might be more about conscience than fraternalism.

Esther, done to a turn by Suzan Sylvester, is as unyieldingly brittle as the bottle that sustains her in her desperation for the life-changing decision. She cannot blind herself to the way the pair of them have ‘lied away our existence all these years’.

We look to the wisdom of Solomon, interloping furniture dealer, to give us a clue, but he is an enigma himself. Kenneth Alan Taylor, the man for all seasons in Lancashire theatreland, gets the flickering chutzpah of this nonagenarian New Yoik Jew exactly right, and is as puzzled as we are.