Liz Lauren
Marcus Truschinski (left) as Biff, Brian Mani as Willy and Casey Hoekstra as Happy.
Often referred to an American Lear, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman is a contemporary tragedy wrought so beautifully, with such rich language and characters, that a good production will stay in your mind and heart long after the curtain has come down. This summer’s production at American Players Theatre is so good that it won’t just linger after the applause fades; It will haunt you.
As director Kenneth Albers writes in his program notes, from the moment audiences enter the outdoor theater “up the hill” they know they will witness a suicide but will be unable look away. Indeed, from Brian Mani’s first entrance, as a rumpled, slightly bowed Willy Loman, lugging his heavy sample suitcases into his modest house late at night, it’s impossible not to be drawn in to his confusion, exhaustion and despair. A traveling salesman who has lost the ability to glad-hand his buyers, Loman has lost his sense of direction on the path to the American Dream. He stumbles through his life, unable to move forward and unable to reconcile with the past. Mani’s ongoing monologue through the play — where he speaks to himself and contradicts himself while revisiting people from the past— is a compelling, stream-of-consciousness soundtrack to his misery. A large physical presence onstage, Mani seems to shrink over the course of the play, as he withdraws further into himself and away from the world that baffles him.
Loman’s grown sons, Biff and Happy, are worried about their father’s erratic behavior and fragile mental state but feel powerless to heal him. Marcus Truschinski creates an extraordinary Biff; the son who was filled with all of Willy’s aggrandizement and oversized dreams over the years. Charismatic and determined to fulfill his father’s aspirations, Truschinski embodies the high school football star and golden boy in flashback scenes, charming in a letterman’s sweater, his hands twirling a football casually while he promises to make a touchdown in honor of his father. As an adult who has come back home to try to reconcile with Willy, Truschinsky’s anger, frustration and pain gnaw at him. As he struggles to separate fact from family myth, Biff finally explodes and breaks down, in one of the most moving moments of the production. It’s a simply outstanding performance.
Biff’s younger brother, Happy, played by a beguiling Casey Hoekstra, also switches easily between scenes as a teen and an adult. Initially desperate for the attention of his parents and the big brother he idolizes, Happy has transformed into a slick “yes man” who can fast talk his way into the company of any young woman he wants— or out of any family tensions that develop. In a final act of love for his father, he vows to pursue the same broken dream that failed Willy. But in Happy’s late night confessions to his brother, Hoekstra reveals the character’s moments of sober honesty and introspection, showing impressive range.
Tracy Michele Arnold brings quiet resilience to her character of Linda, Willy’s wife and most ardent supporter. She masks many of her fears about her husband’s state of mind, and stands resolutely by his side in arguments he has with his sons, even when Willy repeatedly dismisses what she has to say. When confronting Biff and Happy about her suspicion that Willy is contemplating suicide, she is matter-of-fact. Arnold’s performance is remarkable; she imbues Linda with incredible, unwavering strength, in a role that is too often filled with histrionics and blame. Her subtle mannerisms denoting age are extremely effective, contrasting starkly with her younger, brighter self in flashbacks.
Adding a new dimension to a familiar story, director Albers made the provocative choice to cast African American actors Johnny Lee Davenport and Sylvester Little, Jr. as the Lomans’ next door neighbors, Charley and Bernard. Setting Willy’s sense of entitlement in contrast to his African-American friends’ practical work ethic sharply exposes Loman’s irrational belief in his own white privilege. Simply by virtue of who he is and the color of his skin, Willy excuses his son Biff from stealing, cheating on tests and flunking out of school. He also instills the presumption that Biff will never have to work his way up to find success. In this brilliant new layer, it is even more perverse that Willy cannot humble himself to take a job from the much more successful Charley, played with exceptional compassion, depth and resonance by Davenport.
While the achievement of this production is great, there are a few moments that are less successful. Willy’s brother Ben, (a formidable John Pribyl) who supposedly achieved the dream of a rugged American explorer by striking it rich in diamond mines, is missing a menacing edge, and much of his power as a ghostly tormenter is sacrificed when his final lines are replaced by sound effects.
And while Mani is affecting throughout the play as a man whose life is coming apart, he doesn’t fully seize the dramatic moments that indicate real shifts in the play. When he is let go from his company, he doesn’t plumb the depths of that scene and use that despair to fuel a further departure from rational thinking, accelerating until the play’s conclusion. Conversely, the moment of reconciliation with Biff should markedly buoy Willy’s spirits and give him a euphoric confidence and new calm to proceed with his plan, but it seems to have little effect.
Despite these missed opportunities, Death of a Salesman is a dramatic masterpiece, and American Players Theatre presents the foibles and battles of the titular character Willy Loman with devastating emotion and heart. And even though the end is inevitable — presented to us before the first line is uttered — it is a fascinating, heartbreaking journey and one that I highly recommend embarking on this summer.
