Contrary to Arthur Miller’s title, The Price involves not one but a number of past-paid prices that will bring out a family’s values. How those will determine their future and that of an appraiser of their inherited furniture ends the dramatic story. Two Chairs Company presents all in an intimate space so actors and audience share a close-up emotional experience. They also partake of Miller’s powerful social and philosophical views. The stage-attic hangs and holds a great hodgepodge of furnishings-to-doodads that showed off the owners’ wealth before the mother’s death and father’s 1930s financial crash. Having strolled through objects (such as his father’s white, upholstered chair) recalling memories, policeman son Victor is ready to sell all before the house’s demolition. (Jim Floyd as Victor owns the stage from then on with a sensational and sensitive performance.) Victor paid a price for his compassionate sacrifice of education and a scientific future by joining the police force to assure he could help his destitute father live comfortably. This meant he occupies a low status professionally and he personally cannot meet his wife’s desire for a better material and social life. Esther, though uncomfortable in husband Victor’s old home, comes to nag about getting a good price. She upbraids him for sending a message asking his brother Walter if he wants any goods or sales money. Esther has always paid the price of frustration (as Alyssa Goudy’s ugly facial and bodily expressions denote) at being less well off due to Victor’s sacrifices. She may drink too much. As opportunistic Dr. Walter Frantz, Allen Kretschmar (here, as always, quickly and reliably conveying character) reached financial success by paying several prices. He suffered three years of physical breakdown. His wife divorced him. He has endangered his professional life by taking on perhaps too many operations. Still, he’s driven to recoup lost invested money and pursue every means, including tax cheating, to do so. Providing comic relief as elderly appraiser Gregory Solomon, Charlie Tyler is quick with quips about the current market worth of the Franz furnishings. He tells the truth about values of furniture, but his talk gets into moral matters too. He reveals a past paternal failure, the price of his business success. Years out of commission, as it were, now have him looking for a renewed life's work, however short. Is he a model for Victor to shape his future? In his direction, Elliott Raines constantly and meaningfully highlights contrasts between past and present for the Franzes and even their belongings. He has assured that the actors do good work in their limited movements as well as in rendering Miller's words without making them seem unrealistic. Miller has sometimes been accused of being too repetitious with this play, but the actors repeat as clarifying and emphasizing matters. Good direction also keeps the audience with them at all times. The technical crew has done excellent work setting the scene of the action and its time. Costumes further help characterizations—from Victor's police outfit (with gun set aside) and Walter's expensive overcoat to the newly bought, pretty and vivid blue dress on Esther. The latter gets admired by serviceably clad Solomon. No wonder that an engaged first night audience found Arthur Miller's minor masterpiece in Two Chairs Theater's presentation to be worth The Price (of admission).
