‘John Lahr treats his subject with clarity and charity. His cogent analyses are revelatory but not surgical, and his sympathy never cloys. He does what a good literary biographer must do: He does not reduce the work to the life, but shows how it explains the life from which it emerges. He is an investigative reporter, a profiler of personality, mind and character, and a critic who understands drama on the page and in the house.’
– Wall Street Journal
‘New Yorker critic John Lahr shines in this searching account of the playwright Arthur Miller….It’s a great introduction to a giant of American letters.’
– Publisher’s Weekly
‘In this succinct and gorgeously written portrait, the former New Yorker critic and award-winning biographer of Tennessee Williams offers a keen psychological appraisal of Miller’s work, and Miller himself.’
– Boston Globe
Below: John Lahr and Nicholas Hytner discuss American Witness on Jewish Book Week videos.
Transcript of the discussion here.
‘No one writes about playwrights and the theater the way John Lahr does. In this probing, brilliantly insightful, and also deeply readable and entertaining book, he offers unique insight into how Miller’s mind works, and how the details of his biography impacted his body of work.’
– Sarah Ruhl, MacArthur Prizewinning playwright
‘In “Arthur Miller”, the great critic and biographer John Lahr has found a perfect subject: complex, gifted, a man of his times. This is biography-as-collaboration, and utterly captivating.’
– Hilton Als, Pulitzer Prize–winning essayist and author
‘Lahr lets us see the great American playwright with new eyes. No one writes more perceptively about the twentieth century theater than John Lahr. After his highly acclaimed Tennessee Williams biography, Lahr scores a second smash hit with “Arthur Miller”.’
– John Guare, author of Six Degrees of Separation; The House of Blue Leaves.
‘A superbly written, impeccably researched biography from the great John Lahr. The close relationship between Miller and his plays is detailed and sympathetic. A classic book about a classic American playwright.’
– André Bishop, Artistic Director, Lincoln Center Theater
John Lahr’s latest book Arthur Miller – American Witness was published by Yale University Press in November 2022
Book talk with John Lahr on American Witness.
John Lahr’s Diary of a Somebody plays at the Seven Dials Theatre in London, 22 March – 30 April 2022.
The year is 1966. A shabby bedsit in Angel. Joe Orton, who lives with his lover Kenneth Halliwell, is becoming the most successful young playwright in Britain. His West End hit Loot is voted Play of the Year. His work is adapted for TV. The Beatles demand that he write their new movie.
‘A class act all the way…Sometimes uproariously funny, and ultimately unsettling…A most welcome revival.’
– The Times
‘Stunning drama from Joe Orton’s Journal..Halliwell insisted in his suicide note that his partner’s diaries would explain all. They didn’t. This production, however, comes closer.’
– The Guardian
More details and buy tickets here.