The two Arthur Miller plays which have already been seen on ITV -- "Death of a Salesman" and "All My Sons" -- rank among television's most exciting and memorable productions. Now ITV brings viewers a third play, which Arthur Miller regards as one of his best.

A Memory of Two Mondays (written in 1955)
Long one-act Play. Arthur Miller. 12 men, 2 women. Interior.

This is the shorter of two plays which were produced on Broadway under the generic title of A View From the Bridge - a one-act fragment about people who work in an automobile parts warehouse in the early Roosevelt days. Properly speaking, it has no plot -- yet something does happen to almost everybody. A youth gets a chance to go to college. A drunk reforms. Another drunk rebels. A young man with a song in his soul finds himself forgetting the song as poverty and a lack of opportunity grind him down.
Arthur Miller once said he loved none of his plays more than this tale about a bunch of working-class toughs who grind away their days among used-car parts in a Depression era warehouse. The passionate play, about dashed dreams and the deadening monotony of routine doesn't have much of a plot, but is centered around a highly moral, if symbolically heavy-handed, core (those are used car parts).
After graduation from high school, Miller worked in his father's store for a few months, then as a shipping clerk in an automobile parts warehouse.
A 1974 filmed version stars Jack Warden, Jerry Stiller, Dick Van Patten, Estelle Parsons and a fresh-faced Harvey Keitel star in the gritty drama, which opens with an introduction from the playwright himself. |||

Note: Alan was about 24 when this was filmed.