About the Play:

The Archbishop's Ceiling is a full-length espionage drama by Arthur Miller. Four old friends of long standing gather one evening in a country where power is all, and nothing can be trusted. One of them may be an informant, and the abandoned mansion they meet in may be bugged. Can any of them speak freely? The Archbishop's Ceiling is both a satisfying thriller and a potent commentary on political invasions of privacy. Especially recommended for school and contest use.

The Archbishop's Ceiling asks the questions what happens to human beings, human behaviour and relationships in a society that habitually pries and spies on its citizens, and what is the price of freedom? Set in an ornate room in a former Archbishop's palace in an unidentified Eastern European capital during the Soviet era, the four main characters – all writers, one an American – play out a complex artistic and political drama with a constant eye to the ceiling, which may or may not be bugged by the secret police. But it hardly matters whether the bug is there or not. The central character Sigmund, a middle-aged author, has embarrassed the current regime. With his career in jeopardy, he is faced with the choice of detention and punishment, or defecting to the West. He is encouraged to leave the country by two of his former friends, also writers, his compatriot Marcus, an ex-political prisoner now in favour with the regime, and Adrian, a visiting American with strongly liberal ideals. The situation is complicated by the presence of Myra, a poet and actress, who has been the occasional mistress of all three. It is the complexity of the relationship of these four, the inextricable interweaving of politics, art and sex, and the constant uncertainty as to whether what they say may be overheard that makes for a rich and deeply intriguing play – and one that, in the final essence, raises questions not only about morality and individual responsibility but also about the very nature of reality in a world where absolutes seem to shift and blur as expediency dictates. Arthur Miller's prescient play, forces us to confront politics as theatre, where blending the truth with lies is all part of the game.

The Archbishop's Ceiling was presented in 1984 at the Bolton Theater in Cleveland, Ohio, and by the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) in 1986 in The Pit at the Barbican in London. An earlier version was presented in 1977 at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. The play has been performed in regional, high school, college, and community theatre productions.

Cast: 2 female, 3 male

What people say:

"…gripping, thrilling play … the best of the RSC's current excellent season." — Sunday Times

"The play's themes of surveillance and freedom, the power of the state and the role of artists in that state, have gained new potency in light of the Internet's reach and Edward Snowden's National Security Agency revelations." — The Denver Post

"The Archbishop's Ceiling, based on meetings with Vaclav Havel, Pavel Kohout and others in Prague, was a serious inquiry into the ethics of using other peoples' political predicaments as a basis for one's own imaginative constructs, and also (since the dissident writers on stage talk in a large room that may be bugged), a subtle study of how public speech gestures can infiltrate the most private conversations." — The Independent (UK)

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.