LA Review: 'After the Fall'

When Arthur Miller's "After the Fall" was first produced in 1964, it was immediately clear that it was largely autobiographical, dealing as it does with major events in his life, from the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee's blacklisting to his much-publicized marriage to Marilyn Monroe. Miller claimed (and may have believed) that the character of Maggie was not a portrait of Marilyn, but the parallels were too great, and he was roundly criticized for exploiting and tarnishing Monroe's memory. Now, long after the fact, it seems clear that Miller was making an honest attempt to come to terms with traumatic events in his own life. And he indicted himself far more severely than Monroe, depicting himself as a self-involved man, desperate to exonerate himself from personal guilt and dependent on his women to bolster his confidence.

Quentin (Brian Robert Harris), Miller's alter ego, is a lawyer rather than a playwright, with a failed marriage, an extramarital affair, and the bruising encounter with HUAC behind him when he meets and marries the charming but scatty Maggie (Jennefer Ludwigsen). He's touchingly astonished to find himself married to a beautiful, internationally famous sexpot. He realizes that she is a damaged soul, self-doubting and self-destructive, but he thinks he can "save" her. The gradual and horrifying disintegration of their marriage becomes the most compelling and persuasive aspect of the story.

Miller offers a serious challenge to director RoZsa Horvath and her generally able cast by being too faithful to the details of his own life, including an excess of scarifying events and sketchily developed characters. In addition, he couches his tale in a tricky "experimental" format, nonlinear and often abstract, with sometimes-disconcerting elisions of time and place.

Harris plays Quentin as an ordinary Joe rather than the distinguished writer and intellectual Miller was, which is faithful to Miller's script but robs the character of resonance and complexity in the story behind the story. Ludwigsen provides a credible portrait of Maggie, but she's not helped by her costumes. She's been given a highly visible, unflattering corset, at odds with the image of the resolutely uncorseted Marilyn. Mary Carrig scores as Quentin's resentful first wife, Patrick Hancock makes a touching figure of a lawyer destroyed by HUAC, and Vincent Malcolm Cusimano is appropriately abrasive as the man, suggestive of Elia Kazan, who decides to name names before the committee.

Presented by HumanArts Theatre Company at the Lillian Theatre, 6322 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. March 10–April 1. Thu.–Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m. (323) 960-4443 or www.plays411.com.