Broken Glass

by Arthur Miller

Set in Brooklyn, this gripping mystery begins when attractive, level-headed Sylvia Gellburg suddenly loses her ability to walk. The only clue to her mysterious ailment lies in her obsession with news accounts from Germany.

Genres: Plays, Drama, Classics, Fiction, Theatre, Audiobook, Literature

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Works of American playwright Arthur Asher Miller include Death of a Salesman (1949), for which he won a Pulitzer Prize, and The Crucible (1953).


This essayist, a prominent figure in literature and cinema for over 61 years, composed a wide variety, such as celebrated A View from the Bridge and All My Sons , still studied and performed worldwide. Miller often in the public eye most famously refused to give evidence to the un-American activities committee of the House of Representatives, received award for drama, and married Marilyn Monroe. People at the time considered the greatest Miller.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_...

Reviews

[Sepehr · Rating 3 out of 5]

من از کفش‌هام بهتر از زندگی‌ام مراقبت کردم...


همیشه فکر می‌کنم که خانواده، بخت و فاجعه‌ای هر روزه است. بزرگترین جمع نقیضین است. بزرگترین موهبت و بدترین منجلاب است. به خود می‌آیی و میبینی در حالی که همه تمام توانشان را برای خوشبختی همدیگر صرف می‌کنند، ناخواسته دارند به انتهای غم و خستگی سوقشان می‌دهند.
روابط خانوادگی غالباً یعنی همین. نقشه‌های طرح شده اما گفته نشده برای یک خوشبختی اجباری. اصرار به شکل دهی دیگران به منظور فرار از خود. فرار از ترمیم خود.
تراژدی‌های کوچک خانوادگی شاید دیگر چیز جدیدی برایم نداشته باشند ولی همیشه به آن‌ها برمیگردم. شاید برای اینکه احساس میکنم موضوع بزرگ‌تر از آن است که بتوان به کنارش گذاشت. باید مدام موقعیت‌های جدید را دید، خواند و دوباره به آن فکر کرد.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not, in my opinion, one of the best Arthur Miller plays, but interesting. Written in 1994 when Miller was 79, it takes place in 1938, at the time of Kristallnacht, in Germany, when persecution of the Jews under Hitler was really beginning to accelerate. In the US, people heard of these events and wondered if it were something to really worry about; was it really as bad as they say? Were children really being hurt? these are the Germans, with such high regard for the arts and culture! Windows were broken in Jewish shops. Broken Glass. And Sylvia Glassburg, reading the news with increasing concern, sudenly loses the use of her legs. Psychosomatic? The doc says he sees no physical reason for the ailment.

Sylvia's husband is a Jew, but a kind of ambivalent one about his fellow Jews. And himself. He's the only Jew in a prestigious firm and has worries that he will stand out as a Jew. He has had some physical problems as a result of the stress from work. And the Gellburg relationship, there's issues there, too. So the connection between the psychological and physical is a central issue. And world events and stress about them--as we are experiencing now--sometimes what we think the cause of our problems is a simple one, such as with our worries about health or money, but sometimes it might reveal underlying issues wiht our self-image, and relationships.

I thought the LA Theater Works production of this play was well done, but I was not that engaged with the story as with some of Miller's greatest works. The central conflict seemed fairly obvious to me as things proceeded, not as complex as some of his other plays, and I thought the very ending was less powerful than melodramatic, but maybe that's just me.

[Elia · Rating 4 out of 5]

+ چاره چبه؟
_ من هیچ چاره‌ای نمی‌بینم؛ به جز آینه. ولی هیچ‌کس قرار نیست توی آینه خودش رو نگاه کنه و از خودش بپرسه من دارم چیکار می‌‌کنم."

[Theo Logos · Rating 3 out of 5]

The LA Theater Works production of this play was so good that I nearly gave the play four stars on the power of the performance, but when considering the material apart from the production, three stars seemed more appropriate. The story, hinging on how the combined psychological effects of both public events (Hitler’s rise and Kristallnacht) and personal relationships caused a psychosomatic trauma, was interesting, but like some of Miller’s other work, it suffered from an over abundance of melodrama. Not a bad play, but not necessary.

[Olivia (Stories For Coffee) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not his best!

[Kelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yeah... I'm not sure what went on here. I get the effects of war etc but one minute she's paralysed, next she's trying to screw the doctor, then she's gone nuts?! I love the crucible by Miller but this one... I'm just not sure.

[Natália B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Frankly, I don’t get all the negative reviews. Have we read the same play? Have you read this play at all? Sure, the behavior of the characters was a bit... unusual, but what would be the point of writing a play where everybody’s acting like everybody else? I think this is one of Miller’s better plays. These characters are alive, you understand them, you root for them. I especially liked Miller’s take on how psychological can become physical if you neglect it for too long.

[Anton Segers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Arthur Miller kan theater schrijven, je moet Death of a salesman maar even lezen of zien. Hij is waarachtig de moderne Ibsen. Ook hier tekent hij voor psychologisch drama dat ontroert, gecombineerd met socio-culturele relevantie.
Maar hij neemt wat veel hooi op zijn vork, wil van alles tegelijk zeggen - over een klimaat dat anti-semitisme toelaat, maar ook over de man-vrouwrelatie en huwelijkstrauma’s door machisme.
Ook intensifieert hij het drama op den duur tot randje melodrama, en erover.

[Emilie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Jewish woman suffers hysterical paralysis upon seeing the pictures emerging from Nazi Germany. Her obsession is continually delegitimised by those around her, not least by her husband who, ashamed of his identity, wants balance. According to him, the other side of the story is that German Jews are a bit annoying. The papers distress those who can’t help while giving new ideas to New York anti-semites. Her fear of German collaboration is paralleled by her husband’s sudden violence. Finally, her psychological needs are neglected long enough to become physical.

[Shelby · Rating 4 out of 5]

God damn this had so many zinger profound lines.

[Jade · Rating 5 out of 5]

arthur “no misses all bangers” miller

[Rebecca Stclair · Rating 3 out of 5]

Considering my history with Arthur Miller (not a positive one), I was pleasantly surprised by this. It took a historical event that has always fascinated me and talked about it from a point of view that I had only ever briefly considered. Not the greatest I will ever read, but worth the read nevertheless.

[Julie Gray · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have always wanted to feel very erudite and read Arthur Miller and now, dammit, I've done it. I read about half of Death of a Salesman and was just too depressed to carry on. But Broken Glass was more accessible to me and there is one particular moment of the play that is seared into my memory. Not because it's graphic or violent or anything else, but because it's a real howl of truth that Miller just nailed. Relevant today - shockingly so - if you want to delve into some Miller, I highly recommend Broken Glass.

[Illiterate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Miller highlights the social bases of health, tying physical and sexual dysfunction to fear and political repression.

[d · Rating 3 out of 5]

"I have this unconventional approach to illness," the doctor explains at one point. "I believe we get sick in twos and threes and fours, not alone as individuals."

Se nota que es una obra tardía de Miller: por fin hace decir a uno de sus protagonistas que es socialista. Desde John Proctor lo sabíamos, pero que el Dr. Hyman lo diga deja en claro el contexto histórico de producción de esta obra.

Todos los tópicos que estaban más o menos ocultos en sus obras de los '40-'60 se manifiestan: la responsabilidad moral (Sylvia hacia los judíos de Europa; Hyman hacia sus pacientes; Phillip hacia Sylvia y los judíos de Nueva York, etc.); la sexualidad reprimida, etc.

La recurrencia de la explicación psicoanalítica está bastante datada, sobre todo considerando que es una obra de 1994. Lo que Miller hace mediante el uso de la mirada psicoanalítica para explicar la parálisis de Sylvia como proceso de identificación de los judíos de Europa está clarísimo. La crítica que Miller pone en labios de Sylvia es, justamente, el punto central de toda su obra: la responsabilidad moral. Sylvia, paralizada y a los gritos se pregunta "por qué no hicieron nada". Sigue, a los gritos: mientras en las calles de Alemania ridiculizan a los judíos, rompen sus negocios, golpean a mujeres y niños, ¿dónde estaba Roosevelt? es la indignación y el miedo la que hace que Sylvia no camine. Eso y la frustración sexual de Phillip, su marido, un auténtico "self-hating jew", que está incluso más paralizado que ella por el miedo, aunque él sí puede caminar.

La figura del cristal es, tal vez, una metáfora moral: son los cristales rotos de los judíos de Alemania, pero también es el quiebre emocional y sexual de la pareja Gellburg. Philip ha vivido en un error, mirándose en el espejo (what is wrong with a jewish face, le dice Sylvia), mientras que Sylvia y el Dr. Hyman prefieren el cristal. La no-hipocresía (sobre todo con uno mismo), la transparencia. El espejo tiene un fondo opaco, no deja ver que hay del otro lado, no establece ninguna relación con el mundo, a diferencia del cristal.

[Amanda · Rating 1 out of 5]

I picked this one up in an armload of books from a library sale, like I tend to do once or twice a year... I thought, "huh... I've never heard of this one, and I love Arthur Miller plays! Let's do it!"

Now I know why I'd never heard of it. This play is terrible.

I was miserable reading this from the very first scene. Thankfully, the torture was brief because it's far shorter to read than the plays I love and teach yearly. This felt like Arthur Miller turning in a play he wrote the night before the deadline. Let's see if I can pull apart the problems:

- Terrible dialogue. Nothing crisp, nothing witty, all very first-draft and scattered. Far below standard.
- Flat, uninteresting characters whose motivations flip flop for no reason within single conversations. They are impossible to connect with, understand, or root for or against.
- The message is delivered in a very ham-handed way and is telegraphed far too obviously. There was plenty of opportunity given the choice to explore American Judaism during the beginning of the Holocaust, but I've read survivor accounts with more subtlety. The story should have felt more universal and timely than it did.
- The very last scene between Hyman and Gellburg had the best writing in the whole thing; clearly that's what Miller wanted the whole play to really be about, and it touches on a new shade of the central crisis amidst most of his work (the relationship between identity and honesty) but unlike his other plays, that idea didn't develop slowly throughout the work. It just dropped out of the sky at the very end. Again, this reeks of rushed writing.
- Gellburg may be having an identity crisis, but so is this play. It took me far too long to rule out the possibility that it was meant to be a farce. It's not. All the weird sex stuff? How did that belong??? Speaking of...
- The sexism. Oy vey. It may have been set in the 30s, but dude, you're writing it in the 90s. Do better.

Looks like this one is destined to go back to a library book sale.

[Rodrigo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This fella, this fella. Thing is, he keeps writing about Nazis but damn he does it so good!!!! (Nazis, abusive relationship and what Marx called the Jewish question creating a fascinating smile that captures whoever reads/sees/listens to this)

[Lucy Jennifer Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

yikes

[Matthew]

starting 2024 off with metaphors on kristallnacht, sex, and identity that didn’t quite come together imo but it was interesting

[Patrik Hallberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Broken Glass is connected to the "Crystal Night" the name that's been given to the night of 9-10 November 1938. In almost all large German cities and some smaller ones that night, store windows of Jewish shops were broken, Jewish houses and apartments were destroyed, and synagogues were demolished and set on fire. Many Jews were arrested, some were beaten, and some were even killed.

It's a story about a Jewish couple Sylvia and Phillip in New York. Sylvia is somehow affected by what's happening on the other side of the Atlantic and is paralyzed in her legs or at least that is what we and her doctor Hyman initially believes.

As the story unfolds it's of course connected to how "good" people can be affected to turn into monsters, but much more so connected to personal guilt and the feeling that you have when you are on one hand proud of belonging and on the other hand shameful that you do belong. Like Phillip who is somehow ashamed that he is Jewish as he points out to people his name is not Goldberg it’s Gellburg, but at the same time he’s proud when he points out that he is the only Jew working at the Wall Street Bank and that his son Jerome is the only Jew at West Point (United States Military Academy at West Point).

It's also a story about love and forgiveness and it’s only when you look yourself in the mirror and like what you see that you can love and forgive. It's only when you look yourself in the mirror and ask "What am I doing?" that you can start a change...

In the end when Phillip realizes this and as his life goes away Sylvia's life is set free.

[Ana-Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Broken Glass by Arthur Miller (1995)

Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass in 1938 gives this play's title. The story revolves around the Gellburg couple, Sylvia and Philip, whose marriage is affected by her losing her ability to move her legs in the form of psychosomatic paralysis. The treating physician is trying to decode the relationship dynamic and to help Sylvia, whose beauty mesmerizes him, regain her health. The triggering event for her state seems to be the newspaper photos that Sylvia saw in an American journal showcasing Jews being mistreated by the Nazis and her hunches about the killing of Jews. She is shocked that something like this can happen, and the world goes around its business as usual.
At a second level, this form of powerlessness and inability to share the revolt about something unjust seems to cover a deeper aspect regarding the couple's relationship.
The ending is tragic, with the process of gradual verbalization of pain, loneliness, and anger in the couple, taking some back and forth, some lying, and some crying, being well executed and quite psychoanalytic. I have found the context of a world that becomes more and more unstructured, unstable, and violent makes sense to startle someone and make one think about how one has lived, what missed opportunities were there, and what did go wrong. Miller shows us how painful accepting the truth is.

[Rob O'Lynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of Miller's more acclaimed plays, however it left me unfinished. The topics that are dealt with (i.e., mental health, domestic abuse, adultery, racism) were certainly hot albeit taboo topics when the play was originally written. However, Miller is a master playwright, as we see in his more well-known works (The Crucible, Death of a Salesman, and After the Fall), that can handle controversial topics with great deft. This play, however, never seems to come to full sense of itself. It is compelling and unnerving with an ending that is not quite satisfying, which I believe Miller wanted. However it just feels like there is something missing here, something that I just cannot put my finger on.

[Kahana Ho · Rating 5 out of 5]

Identity. Persecution. Fear. Anger. Guilt. Hysteria. Paralysis.
Husbands. Wives. Nations. Races.

Written in 1994 about two couples swimming in the pool of religious/racial state oppression in 1938, this seems strangely relevant in 2020, as we grapple as individuals and as a people with dynamics similar to those that tore a paralyzed, terrified, guilt-ridden, angry world apart nearly 75 years ago.

This may be short, a "quick read", but it deserves lengthy thought and reflection, especially if it is to be performed. In the best tradition of Arthur Millerʻs other works, the characters are layered, and there are no easy villains or heroes, no easy answers, only the messy, ugly, beautiful reality of life.

[Naira · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The main difference is that our kind of crazy still allows us to walk around and tend to our business. But who knows? people like us may be the craziest of all."

"Why are you cut off yourself? You should be dancing, you should be stretching out in the sun..."

"God, I always thought there'd be time to get to the bottom of myself!"

[Lara Corona · Rating 4 out of 5]

"This is a Jewish woman's tone of voice."

This play be like "Hey, what if women are not hysterical but instead what happens is that her husbands don't know how to fuck them and also Nazis are fucking scary?" Miller misses some but he hits it out of the park a lot more.

[Merve Özcan Özkan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nedenini bilmiyorum ancak bu oyundan oldukça hoşlandım. Karakterlerin soğukluğu, Hymen'in tavırları... Büyük ihtimalle kadının çok acı çekiyor oluşundan kaynaklı.:D

[Natallia · Rating 1 out of 5]

Second time reading this for my English exam. Storyline was slow and only liked Sylvia as I felt sorry for her.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Powerful psychological study of Jewishness, Nazism and paralysis.

[Ivonne Rovira · Rating 3 out of 5]

Arthur Miller, it’s me, not you. I realize that Broken Glass, nominated for the Tony Award in 1994, is obviously a searing work revealing — something. Like everyone else, I read The Crucible and The Death of a Salesman in high school, and I adored both plays. Even a naïf like me could see the symbolism, the meaning, the perfection. In my 40s and 50s, I read The Man Who Had All the Luck and Incident at Vichy, and I enjoyed both.

But I don’t get Broken Glass.

Sylvia Gellburg is married to the kind of man who thinks changing his name to Gellburg makes him sound less Jewish, although that was something that quite a few Jews wanted in 1938 — even in Brooklyn. All of sudden, Sylvia collapses and can no longer walk. Her visits from handsome Dr. Harry Hyman uncover a lot more than a medical diagnosis.

Sylvia’s ailment is clearly psychosomatic — something Dr. Hyman realizes even if Sylvia refuses to. The partial paralysis began shortly after the climate for Jews in Nazi Germany took another turn for the worse with Kristallnacht. Sylvia’s husband, Philip Gellburg, thinks that obsessing about German Jews is causing her sickness; Dr. Hyman blames Philip’s treatment; Sylvia’s sister thinks the cause dates to the early days of the Gellburgs’ marriage. Who’s right? And what does it mean? I still don’t know.

[Drew · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know how better to describe this play than Arthur Miller's attempt to mine Tennessee Williams territory by way of a parable that uses psychosomatic paralysis to explore issues of sexual repression and internalized anti-Semitism. The lead neurotic, true to Williams, is a beautiful woman with suffocated desires. The two men who desire her -- her husband and a physician who should know better -- are both attracted to and frustrated by her immobility below the waist. Subtle this is not. But unlike Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" in which the unspeakable is stated pretty clearly if you listen carefully, the characters in Miller's "Broken Glass" are a bit too reticent to dish the dirty details when it comes to sex. And so, much of the action seems to be taking place offstage. It's not a total wash, however. Miller's thinly veiled critique of Republicans, tokenism, and self-hate may be set before World War II but a contemporary audience could easily mistake the script as hot off the press. Even mediocre Miller is better than most plays: every character is vividly drawn, the dialogue crackles, and the stakes are pretty high. I'd go see it.