About the Play:

A Memory of Two Mondays has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Male Monologues and Male/Male Scenes.

A Memory of Two Mondays is a full-length drama by Arthur Miller. At an auto-parts warehouse in Brooklyn, life seems frozen in time: as workers of every age commute in, nothing ever seems to change. Newcomer Bert, only 18 years old, hopes to escape this world, earnestly saving his wages for college… but can such a dream survive the hopelessness of his workplace?

A Memory of Two Mondays focuses on a group of desperate workers earning their livings in a Brooklyn automobile parts warehouse during the 1930s Great Depression, a time of 25 per cent unemployment in the US. This piece draws from the playwright's own personal experience to explore the monotonous struggle to make a living and the dreams of a young man (an eighteen-year-old Miller stand-in named Bert) yearning for a college education in the midst of blue collar workers stumbling through their day in a haze of hopelessness, despondency, and alcoholism. With a strong cast of richly detailed characters, A Memory of Two Mondays provides an unusual number of meaty parts for actors.

A Memory of Two Mondays premiered in 1955 on Broadway at the Coronet Theatre in New York as the first half of a double bill that also included the original one-act version of A View from the Bridge. The show enjoyed a Broadway revival production in 1976 at the Playhouse Theatre that was recognized with 9 Drama Desk Award nominations, a Tony, and Theatre World Award. It has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops, and has been performed in regional, college, and community theatre productions.

Cast: 3 female, 12 male

What people say:

"[In Arthur Miller's plays] we find the true compassion and catharsis that are as essential to our society as water and fire and babies and air.... Miller awakened in me the taste for all that must be – the empathy and love for the least of us, out of which bursts a gratitude for the poetry of his characters and the greatness of their creator." — Philip Seymour Hoffman

"A gentle, lyrical, Chekhovian evocation of the past, with that special unpretentious charm that special works sometimes have." — The New York Times

"An interesting and sometimes affecting mood piece." — New York Herald-Tribune

"Miller's slice of working life drama is filled with lost souls trapped into the monotonous motions of meaningless work ... This rare gem mirrors one of life's most pressing dilemmas." — Chicago Critic

About the Playwright:

Arthur Miller (1915-2005) is considered one of the great American playwrights. During the Depression, finances were scarce and he paid for his college tuition by working as a shipping clerk in a New York factory. He later wrote his first plays in college. With a career that spanned over 50 years, he wrote more than thirty plays that transformed American Theatre and proved to be both the conscience and redemption of the times. His probing dramas received many awards in his lifetime, including two Emmy awards and three Tony Awards for his plays, a Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement, and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1949, for Death of a Salesman.