B'way Review: Death of a Salesman

Laurie Metcalf and Nathan Lane in
Death of a Salesman.
Credit: Emilio Madrid

The most fascinating element of Joe Mantello’s innovative and powerful production of Death of a Salesman, is the deceptively simple set by Chloe Lamford. When the show was first announced, it seemed the cavernous Winter Garden Theater was all wrong for the intimate drama of Willy Loman’s descent into disillusion yet Bamford’s stark set works perfectly. When the audience first files in, Lamford’s environment appears to be nothing but a bare stage with only a card table and some metal chairs for furnishings. But once Jack Knowles’ evocative lighting illuminates the stage and Nathan Lane drives Willy’s 1940s Studebaker onto the stage, we see that we’re in an abandoned factory or warehouse. The onstage automobile becomes a symbol of Willy’s lost dreams and his impending death. A bare brick wall is interrupted by a sliding garage gate and a metallic door. Piles of dust spread across the floor. Light barely shines through a wall of dirty windows. Huge industrial-looking columns reach to the flies. The set is a metaphor for Miller’s vision of the blighted American Dream. Willy and his family have nothing left after investing their energy and passion in a false promise of prosperity. It’s a perfect visual means of expressing Miller’s critique of rampant, thoughtless capitalism and the essential platform for Mantello’s brilliant staging.

This is the sixth version of Miller’s classic I’ve seen—the previous viewed iterations starred Lee J. Cobb and Dustin Hoffman on TV, Brian Dennehy, Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Wendell Pierce on Broadway. There is always something new to be found in this timeless drama of fractured family and crushing economic reality. Mantello’s vision is a bleak one set in this industrial wasteland, but it blazingly highlights the fraught relationships within the Loman family.

Laurie Metcalf, Christopher Abbott,
Ben Ahlers, and Nathan Lane in
Death of a Salesman.
Credit: Emilio Madrid

Nathan Lane makes a bold departure from his usual comic roles to deliver a heartbreaking Willy. In his slow shuffle across the stage, lugging heavy sample cases, you can feel every mile this weary, shattered man has travelled. In his forced smile and jovialty, we can see every handshake and back-slap Willy has had to deliver. Lane shows us the shadow beneath the jovial twinkle, the unspoken doubt hidden at the back of Willy’s dream-stuffed psyche. When his illusions are pulled away, he’s a wreck of a man, but still clinging to his wrongheaded ideas that being well-liked is the ticket to glory.

Laurie Metcalf is powerful as Linda, Willy’s long-suffering wife, not the usual pathetic, wilting flower. Her famous “Attention must be paid” speech is a cry of rage against not only her uncaring sons, but against the entire unfair system which has devastated her husband. Christopher Abbott feelingly portrays elder son Biff’s conflict between love for his dad and anger at the parent’s self-deception. Ben Ahlers finds the humor in younger son Happy’s compulsive womanizing and delusion. 

In another innovative choice, Mantello double-casts Biff, Happy and nerdy neighbor Bernard with younger actors for the flashback scenes. Joaquin Consuelos and Jake Termine impart Biff and Happy’s reckless, youthful energy while Karl Green as young Bernard is a ball of needy affection. In another one of Mantello’s perceptive directing choices, he has Consuelos in football gear standing atop the Studebaker to symbolize Willy’s idealization of a future that never took place. It’s a striking image in a memorable production.

Laurie Metcalf and Nathan Lane in
Death of a Salesman.
Credit: Emilio Madrid

K. Todd Freeman is a sympathetic Charley, Bernard’s compassionate, practical dad and Michael Benjamin Washington is equally sensitive as the adult Bernard. Jonathan Cake assumes mythic proportions of prosperity as the ghostly image of Ben, Willy’s brother who has transformed into a specter of manly success in the salesman’s mind. Tasha Lawrence lends steely depths to the Woman from Boston who dallies with Willy and demands payment in stockings. 

Now that I am older than Willy, the play has deeper meanings for me. One of the strongest is the observation of the shifting attitudes on mental health. Willy’s deranged flights of fancy and trips into the past are regarded as selfish and embarrassing by his ashamed sons. Today Willy would be diagnosed with early on-set dementia and probably given proper treatment and medication. His financial devastation would not be quite as terrifying thanks to Social Security. Yet Miller’s critique of hollow American Dreams persists and remains as frightening and impactful as ever in the age of Trump where transactions are more important than ethics and self-fulfillment. Mantello’s bracing staging makes that abundantly clear.

April 9—Aug. 9. Winter Garden Theater, 1634 Broadway, NYC. Running time: two hours and 50 mins. including intermission. telecharge.com

Nathan Lane in Death of a Salesman.
Credit: Emilio Madrid