MINNEAPOLIS — When Arthur Miller wanted his new play "Resurrection Blues" produced, he didn't go to Broadway. He went to Minneapolis, "to be among trees and quiet," and the Guthrie Theater.
"Broadway doesn't originate anything anymore. It used to be the opposite," says the 86-year-old Miller, who revitalized American theater when his "All My Sons," "Death of a Salesman" and "The Crucible" were produced on Broadway in the late 1940s and early '50s.
But skyrocketing production costs changed everything, Miller said. Now it's the regional theaters such as the Guthrie, which will stage the world premiere of "Resurrection Blues" next month, that are originating new works then seen across the country, he said.
"Resurrection Blues, which stars John Bedford Lloyd, Jeff Weiss and Laila Robins, begins preview performances Aug. 3, with an opening set for Aug. 9. It will run through Sept. 8.
Miller describes the play as a "satiric comedy that verges on being tragic," the first satire of his more than 50-year career.
"It's a different kind of tone than anything I've ever written before. So it's, for me, rather experimental, and we'll see how it works," he said.
"Resurrection Blues" is about a modern-day messiah who has captured the imagination of a small, fictitious Latin American country, causing problems for the local dictator, who decides to crucify the messiah. A New York film company goes to the country to film the execution and sell advertising rights.
Miller said the new play examines "the commercialization of everything. The equation of everything to what the dollar value is."
Miller had been at the Guthrie before, when the theater founded by Tyrone Guthrie staged "Death of a Salesman" starring Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy in its first season in 1963.
"I understand what he (Guthrie) hoped to do here was create a center of creating theater rather than reproducing theater. And that takes a lot of doing," he said.
Asked what keeps him going, Miller answered: "Anxiety."
"When I was starting out, the so-called regional theater, the university theaters and so on, would pick up last year's Broadway hits. That's the way it always was. The Broadway producer was the originator of the American theater," Miller said.
"It's gone now. You can't find a producer who will produce a straight play without having seen it somewhere else."
" 'The Crucible' would never be produced today. The cast is too large. There are too many sets. It was always a risk, even when it was produced for the first time," he said.
But those risks were acceptable, Miller said, because the cost of producing "The Crucible" in 1953 was probably $40,000 to $50,000.