Prof. Abbotson Presents Thorp Lecture, March 3

Awarded the 2015-16 Mary Tucker Thorp College Professorship, Abbotson will present the Thorp lecture on Arthur Miller on Thursday, March 17, from 4-6 p.m. in Alger 110. This event is free and open to the public.

A native of England, Abbotson said that she has always been fascinated by the fact that Arthur Miller never received the kind of recognition in America that he received in England. She noted that the National Theatre in England conducted a survey of the most important play of the 20th century, and Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” came in second only to Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot.”

Befittingly, Abbotson has titled her Thorp lecture “Why Arthur Miller is the Best American Playwright and ‘Death of a Salesman’ His Greatest Play.”

Written in 1949, “Death of a Salesman” chronicles the last 24 hours in the life of Willy Loman, a salesman whose job is eliminated after years of service and sacrifice.

Abbotson’s lecture will explain why Miller as a writer is so important and why this tragedy of the common man continues to resonate so powerfully. She points to the play’s commentary on the downsizing of the workforce and the gap between generations and their values. Her exposition will include a short video, slides to illustrate the unique presentations of the staged productions and a catalog of other important works by Arthur Miller.

Abbotson finds that “Death of a Salesman” is always revived in theaters when there is an economic downturn in America. “Willy Loman is so quintessentially American,” she said. “He’s the guy who believed the American dream. He worked hard all his life. He believed that if he worked hard and did the right thing, he’d be successful. But it’s not true.”

“He also had high hopes for his two sons, who turned out to be, as the mother calls them, ‘a pair of bums.’ The eldest son has been in and out of jail and the youngest son sleeps around, working as an assistant to the assistant buyer in a job that is going nowhere. But Willy thinks his boys still have a chance to be somebody in life. He tells his sons, ‘To do well in life, all you have to be is well-liked. The sad thing is Willy isn’t even well-liked. When he dies at the end of the play, only his neighbor, his neighbor’s son, his wife and his two sons are at the funeral,” she said.

A prolific American playwright, essayist and prominent figure in 20th-century American theatre, Arthur Miller is also author of the popular plays “All My Sons (1947)” “Death of a Salesman” (1949), “The Crucible” (1953) and “A View from the Bridge” (1955) and he wrote several screenplays. 

Abbotson is former president of the Arthur Miller Society and currently serves on its board and manages its website. She is performance editor for the “Arthur Miller Journal,” has published three books and numerous articles on Miller and is currently working on a book titled “Modern American Drama: Playwriting in the 1950s,” which will be published by Methuen in London later this year.

The Mary Tucker Thorp College Professorship is awarded every three years to a full professor who has at least six years of service at Rhode Island College and who has demonstrated excellence in teaching, excellence in scholarship and/or excellence in professional and collegial service.