By Cynthia Citron

There are some actors whose public personas are so strong and so indelible that they can never quite disappear themselves into the roles they play.  Think Jack Nicholson.  Or John Wayne.  In much the same way, there are some playwrights whose private lives are so well known that they are consistently visible in their plays.  Think Tennessee Williams, Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller.

In one of Miller's last plays, The Ride Down Mt. Morgan, it is nearly impossible to separate the playwright from his alter ego anti-hero. You can never quite forget that the man thrashing around onstage, wrestling with his morality as well as his mortality, is a character created by the man that Marilyn Monroe described as a man who was unable to give her the "attention, warmth, and affection" she needed.  "It's not in his nature," she said.

Lyman Felt, the central character in The Ride Down Mt. Morgan, reflects this narcissistic self-absorption.  Lying in a hospital bed after a brutal automobile accident, he ruminates about the double life he has been leading for almost a decade.  Married to a "proper Presbyterian" for more than 30 years, he had succumbed to the freewheeling charms of a younger woman, Jewish, as he is, some nine years earlier and married her, too.  Now, as a result of his accident, the women have met, and as each of them deals with their shock and pain, Felt seeks to justify his betrayals by claiming that each of them has had a better life with him than they would have had without him. Which might have been true if they had remained ignorant of each other, but now that they are aware  of his duplicity they must reappraise their relationship with him and their happy marriages built on lies.

He, however, is unrepentant.  He refuses to accept responsibility for his actions because, as he continually protests, he loves them both. "If you want to live according to your desires, you have to wind up looking like shit," he says.   And then, self-righteously, "I may be a bastard, but I'm not a hypocrite."

The crux of Miller's argument here is that monogamy is an unnatural and unattainable state that is imposed on men by rigid social convention.  And, as he does in each of his other plays, Miller once again explores the ramifications of dishonesty and lies.

Stephen Macht brings an intense and frantic charm to the role of Lyman Felt, but he fails to make him sympathetic or even likable.  Which leaves a kind of void in the center of the play.  As his wives, Ellen Geer and Melora Marshall, half-sisters in real life, represent two very different and distinct personalities: two halves of an ideal woman.  Ellen Geer's daughter Willow plays her daughter in the play and she brings a sweet poignancy to the role.  William Dennis Hunt plays the family lawyer and friend  with a fine mix of suppressed outrage and concern.  And as Lyman's nurse, Earnestine Phillips provides a wise and mischievous presence to the proceedings.  As do the four "dream figures" who float through Lyman's drug-induced fantasies.

Heidi Davis has ably directed this excellent repertory company, the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, in their fourth production of the summer season.  And, as always, the outdoor amphitheater in the forest provides an appropriately rustic environment for a play set mostly in upstate New York.  But sound designer Ian Flanders has got to take the microphones off the crickets: in some scenes their twittering nearly drowns out the dialogue.

Theatricum Botanicum is located in Topanga Canyon.  The Ride Down Mt. Morgan will play in repertory through October 8th.