Arthur Miller’s ‘The American Clock’ at The Old Vic was a wonder.
Having bought tickets a couple of months ago I had been eagerly anticipating my visit when my flatmate suddenly said ‘oh, my boyfriend fell asleep for half an hour during that’, and my heart sank.
This was the first live piece of Miller I had seen (terrible I know) and it is one of his least performed, so what with this and my one review I had psyched myself up for disappointment.
However, I loved it.
Despite being someone who jokes that they have ‘the attention span of a gnat’ — knowing very little about gnat’s attention spans and actually pondering what exactly a gnat is — I managed to sit through the 3hours and 10 minutes, completely enthralled.
This perhaps was due to my profession, as a history teacher, and the show’s nature as an oral history of the Great Depression. However, I believe that it was the movement and disparate scenes that really caught my attention.
I loved the song ‘money’ that kept being played incredibly slowly, as if on a broken record, and that seemed to represent the slowing of America’s economy and the pace of life.
The dance sequences brought moments that could have been dry (history unfortunately sometimes is) to life. There was a particularly notable tap dance by Ewan Wardrop which made me want to take tap classes all over again (I haven’t since I was 13).
Furthermore, the thousands of days of dancing competitions that were carried out showed the hysteria and also intense fatigue that swept the nation.
As always I was drawn to particular actors, Francesca Mills in all her embodiments (especially Doris) and Jyuddah Jaymes.
An eclectic mix, and not one to miss.
4 stars.
