For those whose view of Arthur Miller doesn't go much beyond Death of a Salesman and his fabled marriage to Marilyn Monroe, let us offer The Ride Down Mount Morgan. St. Louis Actors' Studio has it on the boards currently, and it's a worthwhile offering.
A study in how hormones make people crazy, it shows us a very successful businessman (has there ever been so much fur per square yard on a local stage before?) who's a bigamist. A friend of mine who's a nurse practitioner and works with young women talks about the adolescent Swept Away phenomenon, responsibility evaporating in the endocrine rush, and that's what's happened to Lyman, it seems. John Pierson's Lyman seems to be a responsible guy – created a big company that shows signs of social awareness, for instance – and is proud of being vigorously healthy and active in his mid-50's. As proof, he's carried off having two families for around ten years, which is when we meet him, immediately after a serious car crash.
Real waiting rooms are often the scene for considerable drama, and that's where the wives, Jen Loui as the Episcopalian matron, iron-clenched jaw and all, and Julie Layton as the younger and need we say sexier second wife, meet. Both these women love him and believe they have good marriages. Lyman believes they were good marriages, too, and why don't they give him credit for that? He made them happy and they made him happy, after all.
Pierson underplays Lyman rather than making him a guy who oozes charm, a good idea on the part of director Bobby Miller. We will, of course, never know if the convictions he argues are real or merely convenient rationalizations he stumbles upon. They don't seem to do a good job convincing either wife, particularly not Amy Loui, the original wife who's come to the hospital with their grown daughter, Bessie, Taylor Steward. Nor do they explain things to his friend and attorney, Eric Dean White, who wants to know how to deal with the tabloid headlines this is causing. Only Fanny Lebbie, the nurse, stays out of the sturm und drang, warmly taking care of her frequently confused patient. A seemingly simple multilevel set from Cristie Johnson and Bess Moynihan's lighting enhance the time leaps and fantasy sequences out of Lyman's post-accident mentation.
But while these are interesting people, they are not ones we find ourselves caring about very much. This is not one of Miller's stronger plays. Still, it raises lots of questions. For instance, pro-life advocates may ponder Lyman's having married the second wife so that she would not abort a pregnancy. Is that a moral or an immoral act? If one does good on a large scale – job creation, reaching out to minority communities – does that give one leeway in one's private life? There's a lot of focusing on "being true to ones self" – is this code for doing what you want to do instead of what you ought to do? Most importantly, where does lying come into this? The Big Lie, of course, that Lyman misses is you can't have it all. And it's those questions, plus the acting, that makes this worthwhile.
As an aside, when this play came to Broadway om 2000, Patrick Stewart played Lyman. Turns out they gave him a wig of beautiful silver hair, perhaps a la Bill Clinton. Clearly someone was a victim of the fallacy that bald men can't be sexy.
The Ride Down Mount Morgan
St. Louis Actors' Studio
through Feb. 2
The Gaslight Theater
358 N. Boyle Ave.