The Price
From January 2010
1974. Richard Nixon resigns following the Watergate scandal, the IRA bombs pubs in Guildford & Birmingham, a miners' strike in the UK causes the three-day week, stock markets around the world nosedive, Germany beat the Netherlands to win the World Cup and ABBA win the Eurovision Song Contest.
And in the midst of this zeitgeist what was I doing? I was at the Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh watching the Adventures of Paddington Bear, a musical based on the children's books by Michael Bond. Of the plot I recall very little although no doubt marmalade sandwiches were consumed, possibly Paddington did some shopping at Barkridges and undoubtedly the patience of his next door neighbour Mr Curry was stretched to the limit. What I do remember is that the action took place on a revolving stage and that - more than the play itself - had me transfixed.
I think because of that I might have harboured an ambition to be a theatre set designer although aged 9 I wouldn't have understood "harboured" other than in a nautical context, nor for that matter would I have understood "nautical" or "context". (The concept of ambition alludes me to this day.) Not having the slightest artistic aptitude was a draw back and in any case when I went to the school career's officer 7 years later the first job in the book (alphabetically) was accountant and that was pretty much it.
Aged 9 I realised that the stage set was a fantasy but that was - and still is - a huge part of the appeal. You go to the theatre and suspend reality for a couple of hours. Or rather you leave behind your real life and swap it for another reality.
No revolving stage in the Lyceum's current production, The Price by Arthur Miller but the set - a New York attic stuffed with a lifetime of memories - almost steals the show and I couldn't have done better myself. Like last year's The Man Who Had All The Luck the plot is at one level very simple: two brothers meet in their long-dead father's house prior to the apartment block being demolished. But there's so much more: what price love, trust & family values? Difficult to single out any one of the 4 strong cast but James Hayes plays the part of Gregory Solomon, the dealer who comes to value the contents of the attic, with some humour and is the linchpin of this taut story. Traditional, solid theatre; wonderful stuff.