As the cast was taking their well deserved curtain call, tears
were flowing from the eyes of the young actor who plays Happy, Ty Fanning, as visibly
shaken as many in the audience. Were
they tears of joy being in such a landmark production or was he still in his character
as the play ends with Willy’s sparsely attended funeral? If a great tragedy requires the playwright,
the cast, and the audience to climb an emotional mountain together, this
production of Arthur Miller’s Death of
the Salesman by Palm Beach Dramaworks reaches its summit.
Celebrating its 75th anniversary since opening
on Broadway it is arguably one of the preeminent American plays. The universality of its themes, although
focused on the American Dream, has resonated around the world in many
productions and languages.
This new interpretation makes seeing it again especially
rewarding. As a realistic drama, PBD’s
version is stripped down to the fundamentals of the human experience. Director J. Barry Lewis, while adhering
closely to Miller’s textual suggestions, relies on the absence of realistic
scenic design to enhance this performance’s artistic achievements. His pacing of the play is electric. The use of space and lighting, with ideal
casting and extraordinary acting, with a few period props and costumes to
define the realism of the 1940s, make this a fresh portrayal and another gem in
PBD’s history.
The staging has a feeling of a Greek tragedy or a
liturgical piece, where self deception and the worship of unrealized dreams of
wealth and success are the essential tragic elements. Miller mixes the stark realism with dream
events such as Willy’s dead brother Ben appearing to incite him to make his fortune. These themes were particularly potent to a
depression generation when it was first performed, but the genius of this play is
its endurance through time, past, present, and undoubtedly into the
future. Willy’s sons suffer the multi-generational curse of the American Dream’s tantalizing but deceitful
promise. We are left with it in a nation
dedicated to amassing personal fortunes with little concern for the greater
good. Miller portrays the underbelly of
capitalism in the play making it as relevant today as then.
The emotional interaction of the dysfunctional Loman family
is at the core of the play and the orbiting characters provide fuel for this
explosive production.
Rob Donohoe as Willy Loman skillfully navigates the fine
line between reality and delusion.
Donohoe turns elation into despair and then back again with remarkable
ease. His emotional journey increasingly commingles the present with reveries of the past as he steadfastly adheres to the
belief that “being well liked” is the path to success for himself
and his sons. Donohoe’s fluid
interaction with the other characters is breathtaking. His pitiable attempt to plant a garden during
his emotional journey is tragic. One of
the most challenging of all stage roles, Donohoe takes it on with immense
energy and artistic insight.
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| Rob Donohoe, Helena Ruoti, Photo by Tim Stepien |
His wife, Linda, is played by Helena Ruoti (PBD debut)
with an equally outstanding performance, emphasizing her character’s deep love
for her husband. She knows Willy is on
the edge of collapse and does everything possible to protect and prop him up,
creating excuses for his shortcomings, exhaustion, justifying his faith in the
Dream. Ruoti’s portrayal at the play’s cathartic
conclusion is searing.
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| Michael Shenefelt, Helena Ruoti, Photo by Tim Stepien |
Willy’s two sons are the older, Biff, heartbreakingly played
by Michael Shenefelt (PBD debut), and the younger, Happy, performed by Ty
Fanning (PBD debut). They both give first-rate
performances, as their teen selves and later as lost adults. Biff has returned home hoping to find himself
after years away in a number of menial jobs and even spending some brief time
in prison. Shenefelt’s role has the more
challenging arc to it and he rises to the occasion, expressing his character’s
dismay and, ultimately, anger as old family dynamics quickly reemerge. He is entrapped once again until his climatic
confrontation with his father.
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| Ty Fanning, Rob Donohoe, Michael Shenefelt, Photo by
Tim Stepien |
It is easier to sympathize with him than his brother who
has the ironic nickname of “Happy.” Ty
Fanning plays him as manipulative and self deceiving, thinking of himself as a Lothario,
and clearly destined to live a life like his father. Yet he does everything feasible to keep the peace
in the family by reinforcing Willy’s fantasies.
Another element of dream sequences is the leitmotif of
the promise of great wealth represented by the appearance of Ben, Willy’s
recently deceased brother, played by Tom Wahl with a taunting omniscience. First appearing in a ghostly fashion to Willy
and later interacting with his sons in the prism of Willy’s imagination, he heightens
Willy’s dreams of success and wealth.
Ben had made his fortune in diamonds in Africa. At one point he challenges Biff to take a swing
at him, Ben prevailing, and scornfully delivering the memorable lines, Never fight fair with a stranger, boy.
You’ll never get out of the jungle that way. It is yet another reoccurring theme in the
play: the imagined path to wealth is to circumvent the system.
One more dream sequence is of Willy and “The Woman”
seductively played by Gracie Winchester.
This is a shame based memory of Willy’s earlier years on the road,
having an affair with The Woman in a Boston hotel. The scene with Winchester toying with Willy,
flattering him saying he always makes her laugh, is painfully juxtaposed to
present day Linda, partially in the shadows.
Ultimately this liaison is pivotal to the plot as Biff surprises his
father by visiting him on the road to urge him to help him graduate,
discovering this duplicity. This part of
Willy’s recollection is conveniently dissociated from Biff’s later failure.
Willy’s longing for the promise of the past also brings
in his longtime neighbor, Charley, staunchly played by PBD’s Producing Artistic
Director, William Hayes, who is an actor at heart and is indeed an excellent
one. Charley is a businessman and Hayes
plays him as all business. Yet he is
also an old friend, a foil to Willy, working the system well to achieve success
and contentment. He is indeed Willy’s
only friend, something Willy sadly acknowledges.
In more dream sequences of earlier years Willy interacts
with Charley, and his nerdy son Bernard, as lacking the stuff to attain the
Dream, but in the present it is Charley who advances money to Willy on a steady
basis, even trying to hire him, an eleemosynary gesture at Willy’s nadir, and
Bernard who becomes the true success as a lawyer. Bernard is masterfully played by Harrison
Bryan who idolizes Biff when in high school, and is respectful of “Uncle” Willy
as an adult. Charley and Bernard are the
symbols of the success that elude Willy and his sons, playing the game by the
rules.
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| Rob Donohoe, Michael Shenefelt, Ty Fanning Photo by
Tim Stepien |
The play’s denouement is the traumatic restaurant scene
in which Willy, Happy, and Biff appear along with the waiter, Stanley, sensitively
played by John Campagnuolo, who expresses more sympathy towards Willy than Happy. There are also the two young floozies Happy
has picked up, Nathalie Andrade as Letta (who also plays Jenny, Charley’s
secretary) and Hannah Hayley (PBD debut) as Ms. Forsythe, each giddily caught
up in the illusion of Happy and Biff being men of means. It is at this dinner that truths come out,
including Willy having been fired from his job by the son of the his firm’s founder,
Howard, impatiently rendered by Matthew W. Korinko as a person who is gleefully
more interested in the new technology of a tape recorder than the decades of
Willy’s service to the company.
Scenic design is by Anne Mundell, who adheres to
Sondheim’s adage that less is more, creating a simple multilevel set for this
potent drama to unfold.
Video design is by Adam J. Thompson, PBD’s newly
appointed resident projection designer who gets the audience’s attention
immediately with a creative opening avatar of a salesman that dissolves into
nothing. He contributes some abstract
geometric designs for certain scenes, all in keeping with the production.
Costume design is by Brian O’Keefe who focuses on the two
different time periods, appropriate costumes mostly in neutral pastels for the
40s, adding warmer colors for the 1930’s.
Many of the scenes are of the brothers in nightclothes and especially
Linda in her disheveled old nightgown and bathrobe. “The Woman” appears in a slip and stockings
and Ben is nattily dressed with a vest but rumpled sport coat, carrying a folded
umbrella, ready to leave on the first boat to fortune.
With the threadbare stage, lighting design by Kirk
Bookman takes on an additional dimension to support what is going through Willy’s
tortured mind, sometimes with a portion of the stage depicting the present and
the other part, the past. Shadows are as
important as lighting such as the opening when the sons are in shadows and
Willy and Linda discussing the return of Biff.
While the audience is being asked to create its own conception of
setting, lighting supplies the focus.
Sound design is by Roger Arnold, with the requisite everyday
sounds such as the barking dog here and there. More importantly the playwright
specifically indicates the need for a background abstract piano or flute score
particularly during those moments when Willy is in his idealized (or guilt ridden)
dream world. Most productions use the
original score by Alex North but seeking to accentuate its original production,
PBD commissioned a new wistful score by Josh Lubben. Some of that music is used for transitional
scenes. Arnold also implements an echo
chamber effect for some of “The Woman’s” laughter that eerily overlaps with the
laughter of the women who briefly appear at the dinner scene.
It is only fitting that as Palm Beach Dramaworks enters
its 25th anniversary season, it has staged this great play. J. Barry Lewis, PBD’s Resident Director, has
made his interpretation of Death of a
Salesman his masterpiece in its conception and how it flows. This is why one should see this play, even
again. It is unforgettable.
