'THE PRICE' IS WORTH YOUR MILLER TIME.

Byline: Julio Martinez Correspondent

L.A. THEATER appears to be celebrating an Arthur Miller renaissance with current revivals of ``The Crucible'' and ``All My Sons,'' as well as acclaimed recent stagings of ``After the Fall'' and ``Death of a Salesman'' strewn throughout the community. A Noise Within's production of ``The Price'' elevates one of Miller's lesser works to praiseworthy status, thanks to an outstanding ensemble under the impressive dual directorial effort of Geoff Elliott and Julia Rodriguez-Elliott.

Their efforts are more than heightened by Michael C. Smith's awe-inspiring New York brownstone setting, with a somber, overstuffed interior that envelops the ensemble with the ghosts of a long-gone age.

Set in the mid-1960s, ``The Price'' is essentially a cathartic confrontation between soon-to-retire police sergeant Victor (Geoff Elliott) and successful surgeon Walter (Robertson Dean), two middle-age brothers who attempt to assuage decades of unresolved angst on the occasion of the sale of their dead father's furniture. Often intervening from the sidelines are Walter's long-suffering wife Esther (Deborah Strang) and the flamboyant octogenarian furniture appraiser Gregory Solomon (Len Lesser).

By play's end, Miller has decidedly overstated his flimsy premise that Victor and Walter have lived their lives by choices they each made. Thanks to riveting portrayals by Elliott and Dean, the production searingly underscores how dear a price each brother has paid because of those choices.

There is an undercurrent of controlled but palpable fury that permeates every moment of this sibling warfare. Yet Elliott and Dean are sadly endearing as two formerly loving brothers who have allowed their long-deceased failure of a father to drive a wedge of misunderstanding between them that has been festering for 28 years. Both actors project the ill-at-ease uncertainty of two adults who truly do not know each other anymore. The fear and pain in their communication steadily grows as they grope and struggle to connect the dots between past and present.

Strang powerfully projects the anger and hurt of a woman who has had her own psyche damaged by her husband's emotional dysfunction. Strang's Esther emphatically distills a lifetime of disappointment and dissatisfaction into her one final demand, ``Victor, I want money.''

Stage and TV veteran Lesser (he played Uncle Leo on ``Seinfeld'') is captivating as the wizened and crafty Solomon, whose transcendent life experiences relegate the problems of Victor and Walter to mere childish pouting. He knows the price he offers for the furniture at the beginning will be the price taken at the end because the brothers do not have the collective power to do anything else. It is fascinating to watch Solomon consummate the sale by emphatically thrusting the individual bills into Victor's hand as if he were a baseball pitcher throwing a no-hitter.

A Noise Within has been lauded for the company's utilization of sumptuous, mood-enhancing original music to usher in the opening of their dramatic works. This production profits greatly from the directors' understanding that utter silence is the only suitable environment for the opening-scene introduction of the long-dead remnants of Victor and Gregory's past.

THE PRICE - Three stars

Where: A Noise Within, 234 S. Brand Blvd., Glendale.

When: In rotating repertory 8 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday; through Dec. 4. Call for exact performance dates.

Tickets: $20 to $40. Call [phone].

In a nutshell: Arthur Miller's cathartic but overstated confrontation between two angst-filled middle-age brothers is brought to riveting life by A Noise Within veterans Geoff Elliott and Robertson Dean.

CAPTION(S):

photo

Photo:

Geoff Elliott, left, and Len Lesser are part of the excellent cast of ``The Price'' at Glendale's A Noise Within.