Bizarre irony colors Miller's final project

By Christopher J. Kelly Tribune Staff Writer

Much like his work, irony took center stage in the last act of Jason Miller's life.

The Scranton native and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright spent the last five days of his storied and sometimes stormy life fine-tuning a new play with his son, Josh.

"We were going to act in it together," Josh Miller said Monday of "Me and My Old Man," a play about a young writer who reconciles with his distant father while the two co-write a script.

The father dies before the work is finished and the son is left to complete it alone.

Mr. Miller died Sunday afternoon. He was 62.

"My father's one of the great method writers of all time," Josh said with a bittersweet chuckle of the ironic subplot to his father's final curtain call.

"He was all about irony and humor, and when (Mr. Miller's companion) Dana (Oxley) came home and told me what happened, I thought he was pulling one of his pranks.

"It was like he thought, 'Well, this a perfect way to end (the play).'"

Born 26 years ago to Mr. Miller and longtime companion Susan Bernard, Josh is an accomplished writer, actor and director. He left his home in Los Angeles last week to stay at his father's Spruce Street apartment while finishing the play.

Though they were not estranged, Josh said time, distance and the tendency he and his father shared for "being drama queens" had sometimes complicated their relationship.

The trip to Scranton, he said, was a chance to work things out and reconnect -- an opportunity both made the most of.

"We have always shared a love of language and a love of words," he said. "That really brought us together. I tape-recorded all of our conversations the last couple of days. I've got hours and hours of him talking about his life and about writing.

"It's this wonderful journal I'll keep with me and share forever."

Some of the sharing will be channeled through the play, which Josh plans to finish and have "headed for Broadway" by next year.

"He'll be there every night of the performance, saying 'Go Irish!'" Josh said, recalling his father's signature farewell. "I'm not worried about that.

"He was very much a mystic. He believed in an afterlife, and very strongly in reincarnation.

"He loved the Lackawanna Valley and felt a very strong connection with all its ghosts. That's why his ashes will be spread from the courthouse."

While his father's place in history as a dramatist and actor are secure, Josh said he hopes his father will be remembered as a jovial, unassuming man who cared more about knowing people than about being known.

"He loved people and he befriended people others didn't befriend," he said. "He was the kind of person who would keep a bird, but not put it in a cage. He hated cages.

"His apartment is full of butterflies. That's how he saw people -- like butterflies that need to be free."


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