Broken Glass review – Arthur Miller’s shattering drama chills with new political resonance

2026-03-04 - 16:03

Young Vic, London Jordan Fein’s revival finds hypnotic power in Miller’s 1994 play, as Pearl Chanda and Eli Gelb bring haunting emotional force to a story of paralysis and denial Some might say that Arthur Miller’s 1994 play is less often staged for good reason. Broken Glass is about the unhappy marriage of a Jewish American couple in Brooklyn and also about America’s inaction in the face of rising Nazi terror. You see the play straining to tie those two parts together – and yet this production becomes hypnotic and horrifyingly resonant. It is 1938 and Sylvia Gellburg (Pearl Chanda) is a housewife whose legs suddenly, mysteriously, stop working after she reads about Kristallnacht in the newspapers. She is deemed a hysteric by her husband, Phillip (Eli Gelb) – a typical Miller man, outwardly able but nursing secret wounds and impotence – and a doctor (Alex Waldmann) labels her condition psychosomatic. At Young Vic, London, until 18 April Continue reading...