The Last Yankee
Arthur Miller author Susan Abbotson editor Ciarán Leinster editor
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Published:17th Nov '22
Should be back in stock very soon
Written fairly late in Miller's career, The Last Yankee explores aspects of the American Dream through insights into the lives of 4 characters. This Student Edition features commentary and notes by Ciarán Leinster, University College Dublin.
‘When the play focuses on the self-entrapment of the characters, Mr. Miller can be tender as well as trenchant’ NEW YORK TIMES Two strangers meet in a New England psychiatric clinic, each visiting their admitted, depressed wife: one is a humble carpenter with seven children, the other a successful businessman in a childless marriage; both have been forgotten by the promise of the American Dream. Described by Miller as 'a comedy about a tragedy', this one-act play highlights the devastating consequences for those who fail to achieve the purported riches of the American Dream; a reality many face. This Methuen Drama Student Edition is edited by Ciarán Leinster, with commentary and notes that explore the play's production history (including excerpts from an interview with director David Thacker) as well as the dramatic, thematic and academic debates that surround it.
A masterfully executed, haunting chamber piece * Guardian *
The Last Yankee reasserts Miller's unquestionable dominance of American drama ... No other American playwright has had his range of experience and feeling; none has combined his magisterial moral judgement with his warm and forgiving sense of humour and his ability to inhabit completely, like Shakespeare or Ibsen, every character he creates. Miller writes with a sense of pain and laughter, with an understanding of the heart's endless struggle with the mind, which is characteristic of a writer on an unending journey of discovery. * Sunday Times *
Afine and moving play ... Like all Miller's best work, it effortlessly links private and public worlds by connecting personal desperation to insane American values * Guardian *
One of Miller's most intimate works in which an entire system seems to have left its casualties in need of collective medication * Herald Scotland *
[This] passionate and subtle 75-minute play offers no easy answers to the profound questions it raises about what mental illness is, and how it can best be treated * Scotsman *
ISBN: 9781350261310
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
80 pages