Karl Schott as Willy Loman. Photos courtesy of Michael Hardy Photography.
It is with a heavy heart but a thankful soul that I must tell you Willie Loman is alive and unwell. This is true in the straightforward but deeply affecting revival of Arthur Miller’s masterpiece now on stage at the Long Beach Playhouse, and is sadly also true in living rooms across this country.
In fact, today cities are even more sprawling, families are more boxed in, corporations are bigger and crueler and there is seemingly even less of a moon to see “moving between the buildings” in the cites we call home today, as there was in 1940s Brooklyn.
Loman, the leading character of Death of a Salesman, is just as iconic as any of theater’s great, tragic heroes, be they Greek, Shakespearean or otherwise. In fact, he is one of the most important ever written.
My voice is joining the choir of 60-plus years that has sung this play’s praises, and yet, even though I was going into this production already familiar with the material, I was surprised by how deeply it got under my skin.
This is not to say the Playhouse’s production is exemplary or game changing. Indeed, it plays nearly entirely by the rules, but the material is so overwhelmingly strong, the direction is focused and the cast in uniform enough to deliver a Death of a Salesman that proves to be more than competent. It is, in fact, quite good.
Tyler Gray as Bernard, Harriet Whitmyer as Linda Loman, John Conway as Biff Loman, Zackary Salene as Happy Loman.
This is everything community theater is supposed to be and in an ideal world what it would always be, and we are lucky to have this production (somehow the playhouse’s first of Salesman in its 85 years) here in Long Beach.
Death of a Salesman follows Willy Loman, his two sons (Happy and Biff) and his wife (Linda), as Loman’s career and sanity slip from his grip. Willy is 63 and has been a traveling salesman for 34 years with the same company. His sons are grown and out of the house but have returned, at least partially, because of Willy’s faltering grasp of reality. Having worked for so long in hope of gaining the kind of stability that constitutes “success” in our society and always coming up short, Willy’s exhaustion is taking its toll on him and those around him.
A surprise encounter between Willy and Biff, his oldest son, back when Biff had just finished high school, revealed a dark secret of Willy’s and created a profound distance between the two. Willy’s inability to admit his faults and failings as father to the rest of the family, and even to Biff who encountered those failings firsthand, creates a divide that affects them all. In fact, with the exception of Biff, the whole Loman clan can’t be honest with themselves. Aside from the prescribed duties of their familial and societal roles, they remain as delusional as Willy about the state of their successes, failures or whatever they truly want from their lives. This keeps Linda, Willy’s wife, constantly encouraging her husband to the point of heartbreaking denial. While Happy, Willy’s younger son, is too selfish and short sighted to truly communicate with his father. When Biff finally, literally, puts everything on the table, the scene that transpires is one of the finest in the history of the theater.
Presented in a hyper-theatrical manner that blends the present narrative with flashback hallucinations, Miller created not just a critical examination of the state of the “American Dream” in the middle of the 20th century but also a taut and multifaceted work of high drama. That Miller develops all of these flawed characters in a three-dimensional and sympathetic manner makes the drama all the more essential.
Zackary Salene as Happy Loman, John Conway as Biff Loman.
The Long Beach Playhouse has mounted an affecting, tightly staged production of Death of a Salesman, and although it makes no effort to re-invent the wheel, it is clear and concise enough to let the material speak for itself. Though none of the performances are subpar by any means, “attention must be paid” to a few.
Karl Schott’s Willy is played with nuance and despair, mastering a striking range of expression and a burdened and downtrodden physicality. There is, however, something to be desired in the transformations between his younger, idealized self and the Willy that exists in the play’s present tense. The ultimate gut punch of Willy’s tragedy is therefore slightly less effective than it could be with a little more attention to the details of past and present self. Yet, all in all, Schott manages to make his Willy resonate.
Harriet Whitmyer gives this production’s best performance as Linda. With an unwavering sense of dedication and purpose, yet employing a naturalistic and un-bombastic performance style, she gives Linda all the integrity she needs to be taken seriously. Luckily, she also refrains from the over-acting pitfalls her roll can so easily fall into. Her ultimate despair and helplessness is held back until the play’s final scene when her final revelation is expressed with an emotional honesty so raw and earned that it will break your heart.
John Conway’s Biff is a close runner up for top performance. He finds it easier than anyone else in the cast to jump between his younger and older selves and clearly expresses all of the angst, soul searching and gusto his character requires. He has a convincing masculine energy and an ability to clearly display how his thoughts lead to his actions. Like Whitmyer, he saves his most dramatic scene for his last and it is almost equally stunning.
Zackary Salene plays Happy as a bit more naïve than I believe his character actually is and this is a slight detriment to overall dramatic effect of his performance. That said, his comedic timing is sharp as can be and he never distracts from the action of the play’s most important scenes.
Karl Schott as Willy Loman, Harriet Whitmyer as Linda Loman.
Lastly, Gary Douglas plays Charlie, Willy’s longtime neighbor and card playing partner. Charlie is the only person outside the family who seems to take pity on Willy, constantly offering him a job and lending him money. Douglas gives the roll the tenderness and humor it deserves, again leading up to a final scene that is hard to shake.
The production elements are effective as usual at the playhouse, with some coming together stronger than others this go around.
Sound design by Sean Gray is smart and thoughtful, incorporating a poignant use of flute music to evoke Willy’s memories of his father and some wonderfully eerie sound choices that help guide the transitions between memory and the present.
Costumes by Donna Fritsche fit the period and the characters appropriately and the lighting design by Donny Jackson helps keep our focus where it should be.
The set design by Executive and Producing Director Andrew Vonderschmitt theatrically establishes all the different locations in which the play takes place and keeps pathways open for the fluidity of movement required of the Mainstage space. Ultimately though, the set can’t make up its mind as to whether it wants us to see this world as it is or as it exists in Willy’s mind. Also, it is understandable to paint the backdrop so as it appears like a big city skyline, but it doesn’t project the proper feelings of claustrophobia Miller suggests in his script. Perhaps surrounding the house with brick walls or a theatrical abstraction thereof would have proved more effective. Regardless, this is not enough to distract from the action of the play.
Carl daSilva’s direction is mostly concise and clear and the overall blocking of the whole show is excellent. He gets great use out of the unusual thrust stage and creates some tableaux that definitely stick in the mind. He also keeps the pace on its toes and the action moving. The audience can only wish for a bit more clarity and creative theater magic employed in the shifting of time and memory we encounter throughout the play. The audience always catches up eventually, but even as someone very familiar with the material, there were a few moments when I didn’t know if I was here or there. I realize this is woven into the script and is akin to being inside of Willy’s mind. Still, there is much that is underplayed in this territory.
On the other hand, there was one moment where Linda sits alone at the kitchen table in the Loman’s empty house, where she is lit only by the hanging light overhead. There was no assistance from any dramatic lighting from elsewhere in the theater: it was just she, the table, the chair and the light. She is waiting patiently for her sons and her husband. The foreshadowing of this brief moment and the starkness of the image suggest a vision of this play that could exist on a plane slightly higher than the one it more frequently occupies. We sense here and there throughout this production that the whole thing could have been more patient, more stark, more theatrical and perhaps less conventional with just a bit more attention to detail and concept.
However, Death of a Salesman itself dwells enough on missed opportunities for me to fault this production, especially when it gets many elements of Miller’s play so right. We forgive Salesman‘s characters their shortcomings and we should forgive this production for its own as it still manages to speak to the great humanity of the material.
For those who have never seen the play, and for those who haven’t checked in with it in a while, this is an excellent time to do so. Its relevance is more ripe than ever. Besides, by ignoring the ongoing themes that lay at the core of this American masterpiece our future can only lead to the sort of missed opportunities that continue to make Willy Loman’s story our own.