Once upon a time, there was a beautiful doll who wanted to be a real girl. Or maybe the foundation of this newest play by Arthur Miller is the myth of the sleeping princess. Whatever its metaphors, the Doll is a film goddess reduced to infantile incoherence -- running naked through the halls, squalling when confronted by scary grownups, crying for her nurturing acting-coach - in the middle of a location shoot, surrounded by a flock of worshippers all looking out for their own interests as they struggle to revive her.
Yes, there are the Roman a Clef sniggers, Thomas Lynch's tech-laden scenic design, and a heavyweight bi-coastal cast - Stacy Keach, Scott Glenn, Linda Lavin (doing a dead-on Ruth Gordon impression), Matthew Modine, Frances Fisher, Harris Yulin, Stephen Lang - all of whom deliver tidy performances under Robert Falls' direction. But after the glamour fades, what Miller (who, at 89 years, certainly has no need to mince words) leaves us with is a poignant portrait of a lonely and suffering child forbidden by her guardians to grow up - a fitting monument to the woman he - speaking through his fictional counterpart - promised to rescue, but couldn't.
