constriction and art

A strange day---the temperature outside is easily in the 30's, and the wind is intense. So, except for my forays outside to buy food, and to bring and take back my laundry (yay, cityboy, got to keep clothes clean) I have been in the apartment. Again, limited options, a longing for release from this pandemic, but in spite of that did accomplish one special thing. I read, actually re read the play A Memory of  Two Mondays, a long one act play by Arthur Miller, all but forgotten now. An ensemble play, taking place in a factory of auto parts in Chelsea in 1933, it is beautifully written, no where near as galvanic as some of Miller's other work at that time, but in its control, detail, and beautiful character study, it is very effective. What is its story?   In 1955 it was produced on Broadway as part of an evening of two one act plays (both very long). This was Miller's first project after The Crucible. Memory was followed by a play that took place in Red Hook, Brooklyn entitled, A View From the Bridge. Both plays were written for a cast of about 11 men and 2 women, and with one or two exceptions, actors doubled in both plays. The evening was entitled A View From the Bridge, since if one stood on the Brooklyn Bridge, one could look either way, north into Chelsea, or south into Eddie Carbone's world, by the docks of Red Hook. The second play was itself entitled A View From the Bridge; I don't think that Miller has ever explained why. Maybe he thought it just fit. The run of the two plays was not long, and for a while, both plays disappeared.  For a production in London, Miller expanded the second play, and that is the version that is performed now.  Still, it was "underground' for quite a while--by the early sixties  some colleges were performing it, and a movie, directed by Sidney Lumet, came out in 1963. But it was not until the 1965 off Broadway production, directed by Ulu Grossbard, and starring Robert Duvall as  Eddie, that the play was praised by critics and audiences alike. and moved
into its trajectory which now finds it a classic.
   All of which has some importance, but what i want to get at was how reading A Memory of
Two Mondays, worked against my sense of isolation in the apartment.  I was so moved by the
piece, so absorbed by it--I was transported out of the rage and disappointment that is part of what
i feel now, into a kind of joy and excitement at having experienced the play through reading it.
I had "lost myself" in a very good way. Afterwards, spent a lot of time thinking about it, also,
looked at this first version of A View From the Bridge and made some comparisons in text to
the version that is performed now---Miller changed Alfieri's final speech; it is much more
down to earth now--I would love to compare the two speeches in front of an audience--Miller's original ending is more poetic and has stronger images then then newer version.
   So that is it. Tomorrow is supposed to be much milder, more chance for moving around outside,
maybe, depending on my "tired" factor I can actually take the subway somewhere.  It's all
up for grabs, will report soon.