Powerful, passionate and frighteningly relevant, the drama of Arthur Miller deals in the hard currency of `social` realism and tragedy. All My Sons (1947), which brought Miller his first major success, is a merciless exposure of wartime profiteering and the capitalist ethic. The ideological conflict of father and son is a compelling one, and points to the way Miller develops his later drama, where social issues are tempered and tautened by the theme of personal disintegration.

Eddie, the hero of A View from the Bridge (1955), is an illiterate longshoreman. His inexorable progress towards self-discovery stirs the emotions with the same painful intensity as the play jolts the intellect.