NO

VILLAIN
BY

ARTHUR
MILLER

DRAMATISTS
PLAY SERVICE
INC.
 NO VILLAIN
Copyright © 2017, The Estate of Arthur Miller

All Rights Reserved

CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that performance of NO

VILLAIN is subject to payment of a royalty. It is fully protected under the copyright laws
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Author as sole and exclusive Author of the Play on the title page of all programs
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2
“Now for the first time a class arose which, without in any
way participating in production, won for itself the directing
role over production as a whole and threw the producers
into economic subjection; a class which made itself the indis-
pensable mediator between every two producers and exploited
them both.”
—Friedrich Engels

So do I dedicate to the indispensable mediators who, between the

two producers, stand deserted, waiting to return from whence
they came or else to die, not even graced with a battlefield.
NO VILLAIN was first performed at the Old Red Lion Theatre,
London, on December 7, 2015. It was produced by Samuel Julyan
for Covent Garden Productions and Turner Theatre Ltd, in association
with the Old Red Lion Theatre. It was directed by Sean Turner; the
scenic design was by Max Dorey; the costume supervisor was Natalie
Pryce; the lighting design was by Jack Weir; the sound design and
composition was by Richard Melkonian; the production manager
was Heather Doole; and the stage manager was Edwina Allen. The
cast was as follows:

ABE SIMON ................................................................. David Bromley

BEN SIMON ................................................................ George Turvey
ESTHER SIMON ...................................................... Nesba Crenshaw
MAXINE SIMON ............................................................. Helen Coles
GRANDFATHER BARNETT ......................................... Kenneth Jay
ARNOLD SIMON .......................................................... Adam Harley
FRANK ............................................................................. Anton Cross
MR. DAWSON/ROTH/DOCTOR ............................ Stephen Omer

The production subsequently transferred to Trafalgar Studios, where

it resumed performances on June 14, 2016, with the following cast:

ABE SIMON ................................................................. David Bromley

BEN SIMON ................................................................ George Turvey
ESTHER SIMON ...................................................... Nesba Crenshaw
MAXINE SIMON ............................................................. Helen Coles
GRANDFATHER BARNETT ......................................... Kenneth Jay
ARNOLD SIMON ........................................................... Alex Forsyth
FRANK ............................................................................. Michael Lyle
MR. DAWSON/ROTH/DOCTOR ............................ Stephen Omer

4
 CHARACTERS

ABE SIMON (the father)

ESTHER (the mother)
BEN (the eldest son)
ARNOLD (the youngest son)
MAXINE (the daughter)
GRANDFATHER BARNETT (Esther’s father)
ROTH (a rich man)
HELEN (his daughter)
FRANK (a shipping clerk)
DAWSON (a buyer)
And SIXTEEN WORKERS, FIVE OLD MEN in black,
a PROCESS SERVER, a SALESMAN, a DOCTOR,
and a NEGRO ELEVATOR MAN

5
 NO VILLAIN
ACT ONE

In the parlor of a small six-room house in a suburb of New

York City are four members of the Simon family. Abe, the
father, a tall and heavy man of fifty-five, sits with his legs
extended before him on the long couch against the rear wall.
Above him are three small latticed windows. Before him and
to the right is Ben, his twenty-three year old son, lying his
full length on the floor with his head resting under the high-
boy radio cabinet. He is fine featured and almost six feet tall.
Maxine, his sister, tall for her thirteen years and very pretty,
sits quietly on his stomach, her chin in her palms.
Across the room to the left, Esther, the mother, sits with a
book in her lap, gazing ahead. Her large armchair faces the
radio and is placed against the left wall. Deeper into the
room on Esther’s left is a doorway to the dining room, more
than the end section of which shall not be seen. In the deep
right corner of the room, next to the couch on which Abe
rests, is a small door to the street. Over the couch and
Esther’s chair there are lamps which illuminate the room
only fairly well.
It is about eleven twenty-five at night. Deep symphonic music
comes softly through the radio. Abe’s eyes are closing and
Ben’s are already so. Only the women of the clan are fully
awake and Esther especially is quite upright in her chair.

ESTHER. Please, Maxine, turn the radio lower. How can you listen
to it so loud? Such beautiful music. You’ll wake up the neighbors,
Maxine, please.

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MAXINE. See, Ben? I told you nobody wants to listen to that stuff.
Get something else.
She tickles Ben. He writhes and yells, trying to push her away.
Are you, are you?
ABE. (Pleadingly as he opens his eyes.) Macky, Macky, Macky. Stop
it, Macky. People are sleeping. Momma’s got a headache, please,
Maxine rises and walks quietly to Esther. She leans over
the chair.
MAXINE. What’s the matter, Mother darling?
ESTHER. (Takes Maxine’s face in her palms.) Don’t make so much
noise, darling. I’m so worried.
ABE. You’ll wake up the neighbors like last week and you know
what’ll happen.
MAXINE. (Pulling away from Esther.) I don’t see why you care so
much for the neighbors. They don’t care any for you.
Ben slides silently along the floor and tickles Maxine’s leg,
laughing.
Ha! So!
She makes for him and in the scuffle kicks Abe’s leg.
ABE. Oh Maxine!
He makes a wry face.
MAXINE. (All silent. She goes to Abe and coddles him.) Oh father.
My varicose father.
He laughs, as do they all.
(Mocking.) Come baby, you ought to be in bed. School tomorrow,
you know. (Straightening.) But there is no school tomorrow. (To the
tune.) “For it’s June in January, no school for three months, there’ll
always be Spring in my heart with no books in my arms.”
Laughter. Abe makes attempt to kiss her but she evades
him.
Isn’t that nice? We sing that on the trolley going to school!
BEN. (Resuming place under the radio.) She’s some student all right.
When they burn the books in this country she’ll be right there to
warm her hands over the fire. Say, what did Art tell in his letter
8
about those students being expelled for striking? You know that
anti-war strike at school?
ESTHER. God forbid! He’s liable to come home and tell us he was
expelled from school. He’s liable to do that with those communistic
ideas he has.
BEN. Oh please. Stop that talk. We know he doesn’t go with those
fellows…
ESTHER. But he does go with them. Don’t you remember that letter?
BEN. Well we’d have known long ago. Calamity Jane.
ESTHER. “Calamity Jane.” I suppose I shouldn’t be worried about him.
Abe is whispering with Maxine on the couch. He puts
Maxine aside.
First of all he’s a communist, second of all he has no money and he’s
on the open road then…
ABE. Listen, Ben, don’t be like that, let her worry. She gets pleasure
out of it. Let her, let her. I never saw in my life a woman who could
enjoy worrying like my Esther. It’s calastrous!
Maxine smothers him with kisses. Abe sits and smiles as
they all roar with laughter.
ESTHER. Go see what time it is, Benny, go.
BEN. Say, Max, go in and look at the clock, will you. I’m lying down.
MAXINE. Mother asked you.
BEN. Who got you your bathrobe this morning, eh?
MAXINE. Daddy.
BEN. All right, yesterday morning.
MAXINE. I didn’t need it yesterday morning.
ABE. Go in already, Ben, go in already and stop arguing. Leave her
alone.
BEN. Wait a minute. This is gotta be settled once and for all. Who
brought you that new fountain pen, eh?
MAXINE. Well it’s broken.
BEN. What! I brought it home last night, what are you doing,
eating them?

9
 He gets up.
ESTHER. Some training that child is getting. You can’t get her to
do anything.
ABE. What are you talking, training. What is she, a dog? I never…
ESTHER. Oh my God in heaven…
MAXINE. Well you’re not laying down anymore so you can see
the time.
BEN. (Going off left to kitchen.) That’s the last time I buy her any-
thing. What she needs is a good whipping.
Silence until he comes on again.
Twenty-five to twelve. It’s all right to do some intensive worrying
now.
ESTHER. God in heaven. I shouldn’t worry, heh? My boy hitch-
hikes all the way from Michigan, half-way across the country, and
I should find out what time to start to worry. What’s the matter
with you? Can’t I even think about it? I suppose it’s a marvelous
thing that you couldn’t even afford to send him bus fare, eh?
ABE. I wanted to send him money but he writes he doesn’t need it.
If I’d a known…
BEN. Listen, Mother. He wrote and said he was coming by bus. It
wasn’t until after he left that he sent that card saying he was hiking.
ESTHER. Sure, sure. I know you want to send him money. He’s too
fine a boy to ask when he knows his father hasn’t got any.
ABE. So what am I supposed to do…make it? What am I supposed
to do, Esther? Esther, Esther, Esther, what am I supposed to do? Tell
me, Esther, tell me.
ESTHER. (Beginning to cry.) I ask you, is that the way for a boy to
travel—without a cent in his pocket? I never thought…
BEN. Oh stop that business again. You know he’s got money
enough to keep himself well and if he needs some he can wire. I’ve
always told him that.
ABE. Esther, don’t be afraid, he’s got plenty of money.
ESTHER. A fine thing, (Wiping her eyes.) Abe Simon can’t send his
son money to come home.

10
BEN. What do you mean? Abe Simon. There were richer men than
Abe Simon who haven’t even got salesman’s jobs, let alone businesses.
A long silence.
ESTHER. Go, Ben, call up and see if he came…call.
BEN. (Tenderly.) Please, Mother, who am I going to call up? Don’t
be so impatient. He said he might not be home tonight, anyway.
ESTHER. Gott in Himmel, he said about eleven thirty. Call up a
bus station. Maybe he took a bus in from somewhere near here.
BEN. We’ll wait five minutes or so. He’ll be in.
He sits on couch. Abe gets up, looks through one of the latticed
windows, and sits down again in the chair next to the radio.
ESTHER. You’re nervous aren’t you? (Smiling.)
ABE. Listen, when I was twenty I sold coats in every town in the
west. If I didn’t get nervous then I don’t have to start now. For God’s
sake what did you used to do when I was away for two, three weeks
at a time after Ben was born? You can’t tell on the dot when you’re
traveling, what time you’ll get in town. You can’t.
ESTHER. Believe me, he used to travel. You remember the time
you went to Nevada? What a snow blizzard. The first time the
Pennsylvania was ever late, eh Abe?
Abe goes to couch and fondles Maxine.
ABE. (Heartening to the subject.) No kidding, Binks, you oughta
see the snow. People were digging tunnels…you know, digging
tunnels in the snow.
MAXINE. Why didn’t they build one for the Pennsylvania then?
ESTHER. Don’t be so smart!
MAXINE. Yeh, but he used to bring Arny hundred-dollar toys and
things. I don’t even get a hundred dollars’ worth in a year, or ten
years.
BEN. Imagine! Poor little girl. Doesn’t even get a hundred dollars’
worth of toys in a year. My, my, my.
MAXINE. Well he did. I don’t get anything anymore, not even
coats from downtown. (Sadly.) And Mother promised I could take
piano lessons again and I’m not. I guess you think that’s funny too.

11
 NO VILLAIN
by Arthur Miller
6M, 2W

Over six days during the spring break of 1936 at the University of
Michigan, a twenty-year-old college sophomore wrote his first play, No
Villain. His aim was to win the prestigious Avery Hopwood award
and, more importantly, the $250 prize he needed in order to return to
college the following year. Miller won the award, but the play would
remain buried until it received its world premiere nearly eighty years
after it was written. No Villain tells the story of a garment industry
strike that sets a son against his factory proprietor father. Here, Miller
explores the Marxist theory that would see him hauled before the
House Un-American Activities Committee years later. This remarkable
debut play gives us a tantalising glimpse of Miller’s early life, the seeding
of his political values, and the beginning of his extraordinary career.

“…[NO VILLAIN] is recognisably the apprenticeship of a theatrical genius. …

Miller gives a sense of knowing where he was going from the start. …Most
startling, though, is to be shown the embryo of Death of a Salesman. …[a]
thrilling discovery…[a] gripping and intelligent drama…”
—The Guardian (UK)

“…absolutely brilliant…Undiscovered early works are not invariably the best

predictors of their author’s future fame, but No Villain is a remarkable
exception. …the urgent authenticity of the dialogue, the stifling account of the
love, terror and resentment of a family in crisis, the desperation of ordinary
men trying to survive in extraordinary times, are the work of a young writer
who has already discovered his voice.” —The Daily Telegraph (UK)

Also by Arthur Miller

THE AMERICAN CLOCK
DEATH OF A SALESMAN
THE PRICE
and others
DRAMATISTS PLAY SERVICE, INC.

No Villain back cover.indd 1 2/10/2017 5:54:40 PM