Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman – A Fresh Take
“…for a salesman, there is no rock bottom to the life. He don’t put a bolt to a nut, he don’t tell you the law or give you medicine. He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back—that’s an earthquake.” (Charley, in the play)
The Young Vic’s interpretation of 1949’s iconic Death of a Salesman is radically different than Broadway’s last iteration. That marvelous 2012 production adhered to the play’s original vision down to duplicating its sets. Here, ironically where set and lighting are distractedly off kilter, freshness rises from new perspective.
Wendell Pierce and Sharon D Clarke
Universally comprehensible, Willy Loman’s (Wendell Pierce) disillusioned view of the American Dream, in particular what he and his sons will accomplish, leads to frustration, exhaustion, and dementia. Having a deficit of youthful courage, the salesman buckles down to a job he hates, reframing it in terms of nonexistent respect and success.
Both sons, ex-football hero Biff (Khris Davis), the offspring on whom his father based burdensome hopes, and loafing womanizer Hap (McKinley Belcher III) have grown up damaged. Biff is self admittedly “lost” having missed a football scholarship in great part due to his father. He holds a secret creating a chasm between them. Hap has Willy’s gift of self-aggrandizement and will cut any corner to seem accomplished. The young men lie like breathing.
McKinley Belcher III and Khris Davis
Stoic, loving wife Linda (Sharon D Clarke) is intensely protective and devoted to Willy. “He’s the dearest man in the world to me, and I won’t have anyone making him feel unwanted and low and blue!” she tells her sons, building to an eventual tirade which accuses them of being more responsible for his deterioration than professional failure.
At 60 (that age seemed older back then), Willy returns home from an aborted sales trip having experienced repeated episodes of mental deterioration he chooses to ignore. Both his sons are in residence. Biff has floated back (again) from farm work in Texas still “trying to find himself.” Hap is visiting Boston from New York. The two are, at least on the surface, boon companions.
McKinley Beacher III, Wendell Pierce, Khris Davis
Juggling increasingly inadequate income, Linda pushes Willy to ask his boss Howard (Blake DeLong) for a desk job and a raise. After all, he’s been with the company 36 years. Biff and Hap come up with an unrealistic solution to their lives (i.e. pipe dream) in the form of a sporting goods franchise which will, they conjecture, provide status, income and freedom. The only source of backing Biff can think of is Bill Oliver who gave him support and encouragement in high school. Unfortunately, there’s an unresolved issue of some stolen equipment. As Linda pushes her husband, Willy pushes Biff, buying into the boys’ scheme with desperate enthusiasm.
Things steadily decline. Willy’s hallucinations of the past now include his cocky, well heeled brother Ben (Andre De Shields) who slithers in wearing a three-piece white suit, trailing smoke. (The devil? ) “When I was seventeen I walked into the jungle, and when I was twenty-one I walked out. [He laughs.] And by God, I was rich.”
Andre De Shields
Though almost no text was changed – here Biff was offered a scholarship to UCLA, not the University of Virginia as the latter didn’t admit Africa Americans until 1950 – some of it suddenly seems to indicate racial prejudice. Linda tells Willy not to (subserviently) pick up anything Howard might drop (he does anyway); Howard’s disgust and recoil when Willy inadvertently puts a hand on his shoulder; Willy’s being sure people laugh at him – ostensibly for his corpulence, but also because “we don’t belong here”; the Loman men being given a table very far from ringside at an upscale restaurant…All this lends itself to necessary sufferance of an African American family and offers different context than that to which we’re accustomed. One wonders what was in Arthur Miller’s mind.
Wendell Pierce’s salesman, though perhaps less ruptured than that of Philip Seymour Hoffman, reveals a man incalculably hopeless and frantic. Spells are as beautifully realized as is the desolation behind last ditch action and flailing denial. The character’s trajectory is palpable.
Sharon D Clarke is well matched as Linda, so determined to keep things together against all odds, she seems to vibrate internally yet shows few outward signs. Clarke melts a little around the man she loves and admonishes her sons with believable vehemence. We see Linda’s blind spots as well as her fortitude.
Sharon D Clarke, Wendell Pierce, Khris Davis
Khris Davis (Biff) and McKinley Belcher II (Hap) hold their own. Davis is particularly convincing when his father’s hero image is shattered and near the end, defending a truth which severs him from family. Belcher’s habit of looking physically slapped when criticized or corrected adds immense credibility to portrayal. His oily approach to women helps define Hap.
Having thought Andre De Shields’ role in Moulin Rouge the epitome of perfect casting, I stand corrected. His Ben is sinister perfection. Representing everything Willy rejected and now urgently wants, he slips in and out of the hero’s consciousness equal parts grace and condemnation, leaving a trail of invisible blood and tragic portending.
Also featuring Lynn Hawley – cloyingly, effectively awful – and an excellent Delaney Williams as the Loman’s unfathomably generous neighbor Charley (one wonders why).
Director Miranda Cromwell, working from her 2019 London production, gives us a family whose patriarch has driven it to disintegration in an environment offering little recourse for less than strong personalities. The addition of music and even dancing (in the kitchen) at one point works well. Flashing light (eventually blinding) that occurs every time Willy imagines something, does not. It forcibly turns us away from emotion rather than enhancing it. Other staging and general flow are adroit. Characterization is superb. This is a powerful production.
Scenic design by Anna Fleischle manifests door and window frames lowered from above that lack the solidity of narrative and circumstances and a cement looking background with cut-out windows (in which unrealistic silhouettes are manifest) that appear too conceptual. Her costume design with Sarita Fellows is apt but for children’s clothes which look cartoonish.
Jen Schreiver’s lighting arrives in triangular, often colored rays which detract from the ordinariness of what’s going on.
Composer Femi Temowo – also the musician? – adds texture to serious situations with integrated folk, hymn and jazz-like pieces.
Photos by Joan Marcus
The Young Vic Theatre Production of
Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman
Directed by Miranda Cromwell
Hudson Theatre
141 West 44th Street
