名人轶事:Arthur Miller

（单词翻译）

By Jerilyn Watson

Broadcast: March 6, 2005

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VOICE ONE:

I’m Barbara Klein.

VOICE TWO:

And I’m Steve Ember with People in America in VOA Special English. Today we

tell about Arthur Miller¹. Many theater critics believe he was one of the

greatest American playwrights³ of the twentieth century.

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VOICE ONE:

Several plays by Arthur Miller will probably be performed for many years to

come. That is because critics say Miller was able to dramatize the emotional

pain that average people suffer in their daily lives.

A critic once described Miller as an activist⁴ for the common man. He

demonstrates this well in one of his most famous plays, “Death of a

Salesman.” The main character is a man whose dreams of success in business

have died.

But Miller’s interest in the average man did not stop him from exploring

major problems of society. In “The Crucible”, for example, he shows what

happens when unreasonable⁵ dislike and fear cause people to accuse innocent

people of horrible crimes.

Some other of his best-known plays include “All My Sons”, “A View from the

Bridge” and “After the Fall.”

VOICE TWO:

Arthur Miller was born in New York City in nineteen fifteen. He died in two

thousand five at his home in Roxbury, Connecticut. For sixty years, he

created one dramatic work after another. Miller won many awards for his

plays. Among them were a Pulitzer Prize, New York Drama Critics’ Circle

prizes and Tony awards. In nineteen eighty-four, the John F. Kennedy Center

for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. honored him for his lifetime work

in drama.

VOICE TWO (CONT):

Miller also created stories for movies. For example, he wrote “The Misfits”

for actress Marilyn Monroe. Miller’s television drama, “Playing for Time”,

told of an orchestra of prisoners at the Nazi⁶ death camp, Auschwitz, during

World War Two. Miller was also a political activist for human rights. But it

was drama performed in the theater that Miller loved most.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Arthur Miller grew up in New York. His father, Isidore Miller, manufactured

clothing and operated a store. But the father lost his money in the great

economic Depression in the nineteen thirties. The family had to move from a

costly⁷ apartment in Manhattan to a small house in Brooklyn.

During the Depression, Arthur worked at many jobs to earn money for college.

In nineteen thirty-four, he began studying English at the University of

Michigan in Ann Arbor⁸. Miller won an award for writing plays while at school.

VOICE TWO:

Miller returned home to New York after completing his studies. He married his

college girlfriend, Mary Slattery. They had two children before later ending

their marriage.

In nineteen forty-four, Arthur Miller’s first major play was performed on

Broadway. It was called “The Man Who Had All the Luck.” However, the play

did not bring him good luck. It had only four performances. But his second

Broadway play, “All My Sons”, was a major success It won several awards in

nineteen forty-seven.

“All My Sons” tells of a manufacturer who produces faulty parts for

airplanes used in World War Two. One of his sons dies as the result of the

father’s crime. In the play, Miller examines the relationship between the

pressure to succeed and personal responsibility.
VOICE ONE:

Miller’s great play, “Death of a Salesman”, opened on Broadway in nineteen

forty-nine. He was thirty-three years old when he wrote it. “Death of a

Salesman” questions the pressures in American society for people to gain

financial success. The play also continues his exploration of the

relationships between fathers and sons.

The central character in “Death of a Salesman” is sixty-year-old Willy

Loman. The action opens on the last day of Willy’s life. He has been

dismissed from his job as a traveling salesman. He also recognizes that he

has failed as a father. Willy thinks about killing⁹ himself.

Willy’s wife Linda understands that he is deeply and dangerously sad. But

their son Biff criticizes his father’s strange actions. She answers with

some of the most famous words in the American theater:#p#副标题#e#

((CUT ONE: DEATH OF A SALESMAN IN SPECIAL ENGLISH))

LINDA: “I don’t say he’s a great man. Willy Loman never made a lot of

money. His name was never in the papers. But he’s a human being, and a

terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He’s not to

be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must

be finally paid to such a person. You called him crazy…”


BIFF:“I didn’t mean…”

LINDA:“No, a lot of people think he’s lost his – balance. But you don’t

have to be very smart to know what his trouble is. The man is exhausted¹⁰.”

VOICE TWO:

Linda knows that Willy is extremely tired. He is tired of living. He kills

himself before the play is over. Linda talks to Willy at his burial place:

((CUT TWO: DEATH OF A SALESMAN IN SPECIAL ENGLISH))

“I search and search and I search, and I can’t understand it. Willy, I made

the last payment on the house today. Today, dear. And there’ll be nobody

home…”

VOICE ONE:

“Death of a Salesman” had a big influence on the American public. Many

people saw their own lives in Willy Loman, the victim of broken dreams.

Americans discussed the financial worries of businessmen who were getting

old. But Americans were not the only ones who identified with the ideas in

the play. It has been translated into about thirty languages and performed

around the world.

VOICE TWO:

Arthur Miller’s criticisms of modern American life influenced another of his

most important works. “The Crucible” was first produced in nineteen fifty-

three. The nineteen fifties were a time of extreme fear of Communism in the

United States. Sometimes this fear was unreasonable.

Miller examined this difficult period in American history by setting his play

at another difficult time. “The Crucible” takes place in the seventeenth

century. He based his play on trials that took place in Salem, Massachusetts.

Young women in the play accuse people they dislike of being evil witches. The

innocent victims are put on trial and executed. The story shows the tragic¹¹

results of uncontrolled suspicion and fear. “The Crucible” has been

produced more than any of Miller’s plays, both in America and around the

world.

VOICE ONE:

Like the victims in “The Crucible,” the playwright² himself became the

object of suspicion. In nineteen fifty-six, a committee of the United States

Congress ordered him to give evidence. In the nineteen forties, he had

attended several meetings for writers organized by the Communist Party. The

Congressional committee wanted the names of other people who attended

Communist meetings.

Arthur Miller said he was not a Communist. But he would not give the

committee any names. He was found guilty of disobeying Congress. Later,

however, a court canceled that judgment¹². Miller was lucky. Some people who

would not answer questions before Congress served time in prison.

VOICE TWO:

Something else lucky happened to the playwright in nineteen fifty-six. Miller

married the beautiful Hollywood actress Marilyn Monroe. But their marriage

was troubled. Monroe had emotional problems. They had little privacy because

the media followed the famous couple everywhere.

Miller wrote the nineteen sixty-one movie “The Misfits” for his wife. The

movie explored the modern Wild West through the lives of three troubled

people. Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe ended their marriage soon after the

movie was completed. A year later, Monroe died of a drug overdose.

Miller wrote another play, “After the Fall,” in nineteen sixty-four.

Critics said it was the play most about his own life. They criticized him for

portraying¹³ the wife of the main character as a woman who is dependent on

drugs and kills herself. They said the character was based on Marilyn Monroe.

But Miller denied this.

VOICE ONE:

Miller married for a third time in nineteen sixty-two. He and his wife Inge

Morath, a well-known photographer, had one daughter. Morath died in two

thousand two. Miller once said that even after he and Inge had been married

almost forty years, people still asked him about Marilyn Monroe.

VOICE TWO:

Arthur Miller also wrote short stories and a book about his life called

“Timebends: A Life.” He once wrote that when he was young he imagined that

with the possible exception of a doctor saving a life, “writing a worthy¹⁴

play was the most important thing a human being could do.” Theater owners on

Broadway agreed. On the day after he died, the lights of Broadway theaters

darkened for a minute in honor of Arthur Miller.

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VOICE ONE:

This program was written by Jerilyn Watson. It was produced by Lawan Davis. I

’m Barbara Klein.

VOICE TWO:

And I’m Steve Ember. Sarah Long and Rich Kleinfeldt were the characters from

“Death of a Salesman.” Join us again for next week for another PEOPLE IN

AMERICA in VOA Special English.