THE STORIES: The Golden Years. Set in 1522, THE GOLDEN YEARS revolves around Cortez's invasion of Mexico during Montezuma's reign. Written during the early stages of World War II, the conflict between the Spanish general and the Aztec king mirrors the relationship between Hitler and the leaders of the European states and America. Arthur Miller says of his play, "THE GOLDEN YEARS…[is a] look at passivity and its risks, but here the society as well as an individual is at stake. Montezuma, like the democracies facing Hitler, was as though hypnotized. Weakened by self-doubt he looks to Cortez, manifestly a brute and conqueror, as one who may nonetheless bear within him the seed of the future." Montezuma looks for meaning in Cortez, where there is only greed for gold, lust for power and desire to conquer. While Montezuma attempts to use reason and words, Cortez uses force and crushes the flourishing culture of the Aztecs. (22 men, 2 women, of the 22 male roles, some may be doubled.)
The Man Who Had All the Luck. The play chronicles the rise of David Beeves from an auto mechanic to a successful mink rancher. However, while David's fortunes mount, the lives of those around him are in a constant decline. David desperately searches for some meaning to his good fortune and begins to wish that some great disaster would be visited upon him and break his chain of good luck. Mr. Miller views THE MAN WHO HAD ALL THE LUCK as a reverse of the story of Job. He says of the play, "the story of a man who cannot come to terms with the total destruction of his property and all his hopes, when he has done nothing to earn such treatment from God or fate, is very much the same as that of a man who can't seem to make a mistake and whose every move turns out to be profitable and good…The simple fact is that, as moving and imperative as our fates may be, there is no possibility of answering the main question—why am I as I am and my life as it is? The more answers one supplies the more new questions arise." In the end, David starts to come to terms with his good fortune and to feel that his luck may be of his own making and not an accident of fate. (9 men, 2 women.)
