The American Clock
Old Vic, London

VAUDEVILLE, Arthur Miller’s subtitle for this play gives the clue to his dramatic intention.

Following the fortunes of the Baum family during the eventful decade following the Great Crash in the US, its episodic non-linear progression, shot through with live period music, is accentuated by Rachel Chavkin’s direction that turns the central family trio into an ensemble of three ethnic backgrounds — white Jewish, African-American and South Asian.

Their individual scenes are punctuated by symbolic group dance, as the stage rotates and this sense of a circular merry-go-round progression captures the timelessness of Miller’s play, which  highlights the engrained fallacy of blindly relying on never-ending growth to fuel capitalism and the human cost of the bust that follows in the wake of any rampant boom.

Semi-autobiographical, the central character Lee shares much with Miller in coming from an immigrant family who made good in the 1920s and were living the high-life in Manhattan before losing everything in the Great Crash and moving to Brooklyn.

There, Lee struggles to fund his studies, help support his family and pursue journalism and the microcosm of family life, reflecting external political and social tensions, is central to Miller’s work.

But the experimental nature of the play’s segmented narrative, complemented by by swing and jazz classics, fails to deliver the emotional impact of some of his better-known plays and Chavkin’s direction is to be commended.

With a score that integrates the modern with the traditional, a large ensemble weaving in period dance numbers  and the audience on both sides of a rotating set, the scale and the extent of the depression are highlighted even if the personal drama is further denuded.

The American Clock may not have the emotional impact we expect of Miller but this is still a fascinating examination of US society during a decade of poverty only really rescued by WWII.

The suicides, joblessness, evictions, homelessness and mass relocation are counterbalanced by humanity, charity and social levelling — contrasting aspects of such momentous economic upheaval.

Runs until March 30, box office: oldvictheatre.com.