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Death of a Salesman
By Jana J. Monji
Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, as The Weir, is also about loneliness and a different type of haunting. The current production at the O'Neill Theatre
embues a dark, atmospheric view that enthralls as much as it depresses.
This story is partially the perversion of the American dream where the high
school football hero, Biff (Kevin Anderson), has become a shiftless nomad, a
dreamer. His nerdy friend, Bernard (Richard Thompson), who fought with his
younger brother, Happy (Ted Koch) to carry his equipment, grows up to become
a great lawyer. The shift of values and power is uneasily accepted as
memories are revived for comfort.
Perhaps there's some perverse glee in the victory of the nerd and the fall
of the hero, but the story is centered on the football hero's father, a
traveling salesman and his journey toward a restless death.
Miller's play leaves us with little hope as this man, Willy Loman (Brian
Dennehy), is slowly diminished by his regrets--misjudgements that kept the
dream of wealth from out of his reach and alienated his favorite son, Biff.
They blind him to the treasures within his reach: a devoted wife and the
ownership of a house.
Mark Wendland's scenic design doesn't always make logical sense as the
rooms rotate and reform into a house, but there's an emotional rational at
work. Wendland's set creates the feeling of cramped lives under Michael
Philippi's somberly elegant lighting design and Richard Woodbury's original
music and sound design.
Dennehy's hulking slumped form seems crammed into the space, crushed by the
weight of missed opportunities, fighting against the shadows of both the
past and the present. One imagines that he was once a football hero too,
but those days are long gone, leaving him a defeated giant. Elizabeth Franz
as Willy's wife, Linda, quivers with fear, love and anger as Willy is
rejected by his sons and grasps for hope that he doesn't find. Anderson's
transformation from hero to drifter is splendidly balanced by Thompson's
distinguished maturation.
This production aptly distills the agony of disappointments met by the
common man into a glorious 2-hour production.
Death of a Salesman," Eugene O'Neill Theater, 230 w. 49th Street, New York.
Tuesdays-Sundays, 8 p.m.; Wednesdays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays, 8 p.m.
$45-$65. (212) 239-6200.
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