'Miller states that this play has to do with the '60s in that it's about truth versus illusion,' Holloway said. Miller himself has described The Price as his '60s play, even though it contains nary a mention of hippies or Vietnam or freedom marches. 'What's ironic about that perception of The Price was that it was fundamentally relevant to the '60s, with the pressures exacted on families, fathers and sons warring with each other.' 'Many people, especially college students, felt that Miller was showing his age as a playwright and somehow wasn't relevant to the protests in the streets that were going on,' Roudane said. In part, Miller fell afoul of the turbulent politics of the 1960s and '70s. His later plays, such as Up From Paradise, The American Clock, Danger: Memory! and Broken Glass, were not widely produced. The Price got only a so-so reception when it premiered in 1968, and then Miller's reputation went into eclipse in the United States. So many of us are at an age where we are dealing with the passing of our parents, dividing up the estate.' 'In a way, it seems to be perfect for a baby boom audience. 'It's from the viewpoint of the sons, the adult children, that he writes the play, not through the deceased father,' director Victoria Holloway said.

Like Death of a Salesman and All My Sons, The Price explores brother-brother and father-son conflicts, but it unfolds from a different perspective than the earlier ones. 'It's the price we pay for the decisions we make, the lives we lead,' said David Vining, who in the American Stage production plays Victor, the son who gave up his dream of a career in medicine to become a New York City cop. Ostensibly, the title of the play refers to the price of the furniture, but naturally, Miller intends for it to mean something more profound. The Price takes place when the two estranged sons gather to sell off their father's heavy, old furniture 16 years after his death. It's the beginning of all of the brotherly tension as one, Walter, goes on to become a successful surgeon, while Victor, the dutiful, self-sacrificing son, stays home to take care of his father.' This is central to The Price when the family's fortunes are wiped out in 1929. 'He called it not just an economic disaster but a moral catastrophe. Roudane, a leading Miller scholar and English professor at Georgia State University. 'The Depression is one of the subjects that Miller continually returns to in some way, shape or form,' said Matthew C.

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