The Man Who Had All the Luck

Synopsis

Blessed with good fortune, David Beeves's life can't get much better. But as the lives of those around him begin to crumble, he starts to question his own destiny. Follows one man's struggle to change his fate, and asks the question - is there such a thing as too much luck?

Our Review:

6 March 2008

Arthur Miller’s fascinating early play The Man Who Had All the Luck lasted for only four performances on Broadway in 1944 but survives as a key play in the history of American drama, a play of post-War aspiration in a land of dreams and possibility.

Sean Holmes’s riveting and super-charged revival for the Donmar Warehouse is the third in Britain; Iain Glen starred in Paul Unwin’s glowingly picturesque Bristol Old Vic British premiere in 1980 and Michael Grandage presented David Hunt’s production at the end of his Sheffield Crucible tenure in 2001.

The story of David Beeves, a garage hand in a small mid-Western town who succeeds effortlessly as an agriculturalist, shop and quarry owner and mink farmer, has a rambling, novelistic feel to it, as Miller was still wavering between theatre and fiction.

This lends the play an uncertain, dream-like and fragmentary quality that now seems psychologically mo...

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Latest User Review

rds - 5 April 2008:

I am not at all surprised to see two and three star ratings here. As usual the Donmar provided us with a great set so it was a big disappointment to discover what had been put into it didn't work. Dodgy accents apart there was some dodgy acting too. Not only did I feel distinctly uncaring towards the characters, but I also could not believe in any of them either. Superficially it had all the ingredients to make it work, but never quite took off - unlike an aerial car in the first act! To be fair I don't think Miller helped either. With uncharacteristically stodgy direction this was, for me, a unique experience at the Donmar - lets hope it stays that way. ...

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