The Price follows Broken Glass and All My Sons as the latest Arthur Miller play to hit London streets in 2026, and sets the bar sky high. The Marylebone Theatre delivers once again.
Two brothers meet in their late father’s attic after years of estrangement, while an eccentric furniture appraiser acts as comic relief during their attempts at reconciliation. Through this simple set-up Miller expertly explores the human condition, and humanity’s relationship with legacy, family and trauma. In two hours forty minutes, the cast deliver decades of family resentment and dispute, making you feel as though you too were a member of the Franz clan.
Wild Yak Productions brings one of the West End’s biggest directors together with one of America’s best ever playwrights. Jonathan Munby keeps the authenticity of the play, rather than trying to modernise it. The results are astounding, this adaptation is as good as the play can be.
The production has not been staged in London since 2019’s Olivier-nominated adaptation at the Wyndham. Big shoes to fill indeed, but two-time Olivier Award-winning Henry Goodman rises to the challenge. Goodman is sensational, leading the cast as Miller’s Gregory Solomon. Elliot Cowan is Victor Franz, Faye Castelow plays wife Esther, and John Hopkins is brother Walter. Goodman is absent for most of the second act, which gives the other three an opportunity to fill the void, a monumental task the trio perform magnificently. There is not a dull moment in either act.
The sometimes questionable accents are saved by Goodman, whose whole performance leans so heavily into caricature and stereotype that he pulls the audience on side. “Birds” are boyuds, “girls” are goyuls, and “nervous” is noyvus. Solomon is such an over-the-top individual that an over-the-top accent fits him perfectly, and makes the audience lean into the story, becoming immersed in the family and their thick New Yorker accents, however accentuated.
The small venue is perfect for The Price. The play begins with Cowan shining a flashlight through the attic, before turning it onto the audience, resulting in the crowd feeling like they are also sitting in the crammed loft of a West Side townhouse.
Completed in 1967, The Price still feels remarkably current. Miller set the play after the Depression, but wrote it with Vietnam in mind. The allegorical nature of the play and its message, that humanity does not learn from its mistakes, could explain why it has stood the test of time so well. The realistic, murky half-truths that surround families after a figurehead’s passing, such as arguments about inheritance and filial loyalty, are as resonant as ever.
The desire for and obsession over money permeates through the play. The two brothers, similar as children and worlds apart as adults, are in fact both on the answering end of a 911 call, healthcare and police respectively, the key difference between them being remuneratory. Faye Castelow’s character obsesses over money throughout, feeling the social pressure of not being successful. Goodman’s Solomon haggles and bleeds for every cent until the final curtain.
The play dives into a mixing pot of race, culture and class, and looks at the rising and falling of fortunes and families, an amazingly relatable blueprint of post-war America, perfectly written by Miller and expertly represented in this adaptation. The entire audience was on its feet as soon as the final curtain came down.
Listings and ticket information can be found here
