The Price

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

Even though the holiday season arrives basically at the same time every year, it always manages to sneak up between the cracks. This year, it snuck up on softer shoes taking us even more by surprise. The Holidays spell Family, no matter who are what the family happens to be. On the surface, through the commercial glitter, the Holidays smile with promises of thrilling excitement, anticipation, magical times, perfect parties, perfect memories, perfect everything.

Albert Banker as Solomon and Paul Caouette as Vicotr in Germinal Stage Denver’s production of The Price.

Living under the surface, anxiety creeps in wrapped in imperfect families, people who don’t see eye to eye, people with distorted histories, people with grudges, hurt and misunderstood feelings smoldering for years, along with the rude and the crude. Dysfunctional families attempt to pretend Holiday magic will make everything right, for once, knowing full-well the Holiday magic will reveal only disappointed exhausted frustration. Obligation and traditional expectation costumes themselves in Grinch Green leaving widening the gap between hope and disappointment.

Exactly the reason Germinal Stage Denver’s breath taking production of Arthur Miller’s The Price should be a must see before the Holiday pretense begins its double dare dance to the end of the year.

Legendary for his incredible insight into human nature, Miller, like no other playwright, paints copious portraits of specific individuals living in specific times with a universal flair. Displaying a beautifully wrapped package tied with a velvet ribbon, Miller knows how to present the inside contents in explicit detail. The contents rarely appealing as the initial packaging, but when cushioned with motive, and understanding, Miller turns the human race into an endearing gift of appreciation. That’s the point where celebration begins.

Combine Miller with Ed Baierlein’s ability to immerse himself in a script maintaining the playwright’s integrity and at the same time making it his own is in itself legendary. Miller’s The Price is no exception.

With a brilliant cast willing to ingratiate themselves with inside-outside torment, con artistry, misunderstandings, hurt feelings, impossible wants, broken dreams, perplexed anger, wasted lives suffocated by piles of foamed blame, The Price shimmers with vital life. Featuring Paul Caouette, Erica Sarzin-Borrillo, Albert Banker, and Tupper Cullum, Miller’s stunning writing allows the audience to see, hear, understand minute dynamics before the characters have opportunity to piece things together. A subtle technique GSD mastered.

After the death of his father 16 years before, Victor Franz (Caouette) returns to the attic where he and his father lived. For 16 years he’s been able to ignore facing the disposal of the furniture and facing his estranged brother Walter (Cullum). With the building scheduled for demolition, time runs out for facing harsh reality.

Victor’s entrance into the attic in the dark, switching on a couple of lamps, standing silently with stares into the past is one of the most poignant moments in the play. These are not happy memories. Caouette gives Victor full-fledged truth of seeing into the past and into the future at the same time with slouched shoulders and purposeless stance.

Exhausted, manic, brittle Victor’s wife, Esther trudges up the stairs. Sarzin-Borillio presents more than a character. She provides a real live person tethering close to the end of her rope. Money, they need money. He needs to bargain. They need the best possible price for the furniture. And where is his brother Walter (Cullum)? Why isn’t he here? Why has Victor refused to contact Walter? Where is his suit? Why is he in his policeman’s uniform? She wants a night out without being interrupted. They’re going to a movie, and the uniform always attracts unwanted attention. Once they get his pension, they can start to live. Esther doesn’t know where she is. “Everything is temporary with us. I want money.” Victor rolls in despair, “What’s the difference with what you do if you don’t do the work you love?”

Police work was not what he wanted. He wanted to go to medical school. His father having lost everything in the 1929 Crash, Victor needed $500. He needed to take care of his ailing father. Walter refused to loan him the money, only sending his father $5.00 a month to live. There was Walter a doctor, money no issue for him. Victor couldn’t leave his father on just $5.00 a month. Walter seemed unwilling, uncaring. Victor felt trapped.

Picking names out of a phone book can be treacherous as reaching for the unknown grabbing the bizarre. Victor called an appraiser from the phone book getting Gregory Solomen (Banker). What he doesn’t know is Solomen is 89 years old and hasn’t worked as an appraiser for several years. So why did he agree to come? Victor called. That’s why. Needing rhyme and reason in his life, Solomen jumped at the chance. Banker’s performance as the old man moves beyond exquisite to jaw dropping. Cunning, a natural con artist, Solomen knows his way around the naïve. Emotional outbreaks outlined in humorous escapades Solomen’s energy runs circles around Victor. Not a “socialable” person, Victor wants to get to the point. Solomen only responds with “So we’re not going to be buddies?”

Full of “strideful” confidence, an air of arrogance, a happy to see you handshake, self-propelled justification Walter waltzes in as though nothing ever happened, just to say hello. He doesn’t want any of the furniture. Victor can have the money from the sale. He just wants to say hello. As memories escalate into the past, the happy to see you arrogant justification begins to unravel with Walter. Cullum gives an amazing performance of what appears on the outside isn’t what lives on the inside, creating a transparency without shadows and mirrors.

The entanglements between Victor and Walter, Victor and Esther, Esther and Walter, jump moment by moment through designed hoops of resentment, disappointment, confusion, frustration, and blame. In the middle sits the cunning, conniving Solomen playing his little old man routine to the hilt fraught with laughable humor to break the tension for the audience, only to create more desperate frustration for the characters. A Milleresque technique that many playwrights strive to achieve, but never quite crack the essence. Solomen drives a hard bargain, but he knows which side of the cards hides an Appraiser’s secret mark for financial success.

The price of the furniture plays a huge role in this play for Victor, especially for Esther, and for Walter in a strange macabre way. But it’s the underlying price Miller is most interested in. The price people pay in ignoring reality, pretense, fostering untruths, unwillingness to face consequences within their own lives and the lives of family. There is reason Walter wouldn’t loan Victor the $500, reason, why he only sent his father $5 a month, reasons that lay under Victor’s nose the entire time and reason why he couldn’t see through the façade, couldn’t see beyond resentment to his father’s manipulation. How was he to know his father was waiting for him to walk out? The issues hammer away, bouncing between the characters while Solomen prances through negotiations, sensing when to interfere, when to disappear, marking his time for the family drama to play itself out. Each character has their story to tell. Sometimes the stories walk side by side, and sometimes they play leapfrog missing each other completely. Words of wisdom ignored. Perceptive suggestion shunted aside.

The actors: Caouette, Sarzin-Borillo, Banker, and Cullum take the words off the scripted page, turn them inside out and balloon them with flesh and blood personalities recognizable in just about every family one way or another.

On a stage cluttered with old furniture, an old phonograph, a wonderful harp meticulously hiding its own secrets, the set designed by Baierlein looks, feels and almost smells of a closed off musty attic hiding some happy memories within its dusty corners, showered by an agonizing past.

Hidden in the animated dialogue, Esther ready to go to the movies allows understanding to creep in when she tells Victor he doesn’t need to wear his suit. His uniform is just fine. A tender moment that could easily get lost in tangled confrontation.

A gripping ending drenched in spotlight reveals a curly gray haired 89 nine-year-old bearded man retaining his touch as a salesman par excellence.

Resolutions come, not in simplistic happy go lucky gift bags, but on an acceptable realistic level. History doesn’t disappear with a handshake. It encompasses vital meaning, leading to celebration of life in its own way.

Before the holiday celebrations begin with their glittered trapeze act, of balancing the inside with the outside, Call Germinal’s Box office now for reservations. Perceptive insight, comprehension and understanding put everything in its place. Then the celebration can begin. The timing of Miller’s The Price on the part of GSD revels in undeniable significance.