INTERVIEW: Brandon J. Dirden tackles his first Arthur Miller play
Photo: Andrea Syglowski and Karl Kenzler star in Arthur Miller’s The Price at Two River Theater. Photo courtesy of T. Charles Erickson / Provided by Social Sidekick Media with permission.
Brandon J. Dirden, one of the most accomplished actors and directors of his generation, has found an artistic home at Two River Theater in Red Bank, New Jersey. This regional theater company has paired with Dirden on a number of projects over the years, and their latest collaboration is a revival of Arthur Miller’s The Price. The impetus for the show, which continues through Sunday, June 29, is the simple fact that Dirden and Two River’s artistic director, Justin Waldman, had never mounted a Miller play before.
“I was first approached to direct this by the new artistic director, Justin Waldman, and Justin, he’s produced over 300 plays as an administrator at various theater companies across the country,” Dirden said in a recent phone interview. “But he had never done an Arthur Miller play, and that was on his punch list. I often traffic in August Wilson … and I had never approached an Arthur Miller play as well. I teach him in my classes, but I had never got the opportunity to work on it. So personally, just selfishly, it was just an opportunity for Justin and I to work on one of the great American playwrights.”
Waldman chose The Price as their first foray, and Dirden was instantly won over. The show follows two siblings, Victor and Walter, who haven’t seen each other in years, but they must head to their old home and discuss the inheritance of the family estate. This leads to a reckoning with the past that is uncomfortable for everyone on stage.
“I think when Justin proposed this last year, I didn’t know how prescient that decision would be,” the director said. “This play, it really does tap into, for me anyway, an attachment to this economic anxiety that we’re all feeling now as a country and our responsibility to making sure that we’re in a healthy ecosystem to support these big American ideals and how much of that is a trap from keeping us from really being in relationship with one another. … This play is all about inheritance. These two estranged brothers had to figure out what to do with the remnants of what their dad left behind, what kind of attachments to the stuff that they had and how they’ve got to move forward in their lives. And I think that’s where we are right now as a people in America.”
Dirden and the creative team explore the theme of inheritance beyond mere economic conditions. They wanted to investigate how inheritance can mean a debt that is far beyond dollars and cents, and Miller’s carefully chosen words were their guiding light through that conversation.
“It makes us consider all that has been left to us as current Americans and how we’re going to deal with our past and how we’re going to move forward into the future,” Dirden said. “It’s kind of a big idealistic picture the way I’m resonating with the play and I think the way audiences resonate with the play, but at the end of it, I think this play really does encourage us to look and see how our ambition for success or for oneupmanship or being on top of this American exceptionalism, what type of obstacles that those ideals provide to us being in a relationship with one another. I think that’s what Arthur Miller is trying to say at the end of the day.”
Dirden has directed at Two River many times before. His productions over the years have included Seven Guitars, King Hedley II, Radio Golf and Wine in the Wilderness. His acting credits at the regional theater are extensive as well, including Jitney, Topdog/Underdog and A Raisin in the Sun, among others. There are also his many Broadway and off-Broadway roles, including the acclaimed Take Me Out and Skeleton Crew.
This particular experience with a Miller play has been a positive one. “Someone asked me this question yesterday: What have I learned about Arthur Miller working on it from this vantage point for the first time?” he said. “I’ve always appreciated him. I just think Arthur Miller is the master of the conundrum. His characters are damned if they do and damned if they don’t, but they’ve got to do something. So I just always appreciate the moral conflict that’s in his plays.
Dirden added: “One thing I hadn’t really recognized until working on this play this time is just how fair Arthur Miller is to his characters. Everybody kind of gets equal weight in the argument, which leaves the audiences so much more conflicted. There are no obvious villains in Arthur Miller’s plays, especially in The Price, so your allegiances are ping-ponged back and forth between all four of these characters. So I just really marvel at how Arthur Miller was able to give each one of these characters a voice to competing arguments and make them just as valid as one another. I think it makes it more rich, more complex, and it really gives the audience an ability to look at things way more objectively than just being able to side with one particular character. I’m just really struck by his fairness.”
When casting the play, Dirden wanted real-and-true theater actors. He wanted folks who have built a career on the stage, and that led him to selecting Kevin Isola, Karl Kenzler, Andrea Syglowski and Peter Van Wagner.
“What we need are four theater actors, and I meant that in the truest sense of the word, people who have dedicated their lives to the training and decades of trodding the boards,” he said. “I’m just so, so, so lucky that you have four curious actors who just want to come and duke it out in the center of the ring and who actually thrive off the conflict of what drives this play. They have an appetite to get in there and spar with each other every day. They’re so brave. That’s what you need to do in an Arthur Miller play, I find. You need courage to plunge into the abyss because he sets you up. The first third of the play seems pretty innocuous. We’re just going along, and then all of a sudden you find yourself at a peak. And then it’s a free fall. It’s a high-wire act with no net, and … it’s a real gift to watch them nimbly navigate this terrain.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
The Price, directed by Brandon J. Dirden, continues at Two River Theater through Sunday, June 29. Click here for more information and tickets.
