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.