‘DEATH OF A SALESMAN’: (left to right) Sharon D. Clarke, Wendell Pierce & André De Shields. Photo: Joan Marcus.

DEATH OF A SALESMAN
Written by Arthur Miller
Directed by Miranda Cromwell
Through January 15, 2023
Hudson Theatre
141 West 44th Street

(855-801-5876), www.SalesmanOnBroadway.com

By David NouNou

Death of a Salesman exists in two worlds, that of delusion (Willy Loman and his two sons, Biff and Happy) and denial (Linda Loman, his wife). Willy lives mostly in the faded past of imagined glory and his halcyon days as a salesman (real or imagined), but Linda is always grounded in the present and reality. Her denial is rooted in her deep love and devotion to Willy.

Set in 1949, Willy (Wendell Pierce) has returned home unexpectedly from a trip he was supposed to make to Boston and couldn’t make it past Yonkers. Willy has been working as a salesman for his company for 36 years. He is tired and spent. He now talks to himself a lot and lives with the ghosts of his past. He can’t seem to make those long hauls to New England to sell his wares; instead, he gets into accidents because of his wandering mind. His salary has been cut and he lives on commission. His friend and next-door neighbor, Charley (Delaney Williams), provides him with $50 a week to help pay off the mortgage on his home and the premium on his life insurance. Willy is a broken man and lives with his demons and fantasies of the American dream and success. Success comes to everyone around him but not to Willy or his family. Even his sons, both of whom were his prized treasures, have turned out to be wastrels and failures.

Linda (Sharon D. Clarke) is his long-suffering wife who has always stood by Willy and buoyed him to keep moving forward. She has never made him feel like a failure.

The boys: Biff, now 34 (Khris Davis), was a football star in high school and had a lot of hot air blown into him by his father, but has been a failure at everything since he was 17 and dropped out of school due to his father’s indiscretion on the road. Biff has just come back home from working in a farm in Nebraska. Happy, the younger son who worshiped Biff (McKinley Belcher III), has a lot of pipe dreams of his own and lies to and about himself.

This is a beautifully textured play that Arthur Miller wrote about the downfall of all the Willys/salesmen  who had dreams that didn’t come to fruition. It has at least 15 universal themes interwoven throughout. It has been 73 years since this play first opened and it is still as relevant today, if not more so than in 1949. Because the pressures of life have gotten harder, and we still live in life’s turmoils—ageism, losing jobs, paying bills, fear of failure, life’s disappointments and missed opportunities. The only way to do justice to this play is to cast it perfectly and direct it in a seamless manner, as Mike Nichols did in 2012 with Philip Seymour Hoffman; as Robert Falls did in 1999 with Brian Dennehy; and as George C. Scott did in 1975, directing himself. No extemporaneous business or gimmicks are needed. Just perform the play.

Starting with the good, God bless Sharon D. Clarke, because she is the only person that comes across the stage in blazing glory. She is grounded in reality and has the depth of Linda Loman’s duality. She knows Willy’s failures but would never betray him by admitting them to anyone. She loves her sons but will not stand for one bad remark made about Willy. She would rather throw them out from the house than to see Willy hurt. She is the heart and soul of the play. Wait until she recites “Attention must be paid to such a man…” It breaks your heart.

The problems that have risen in this production stem from directorial viewpoints and the choices made. Directors now are taking more risks and liberties to bring new but often misguided visions to established masterpieces. Just look at the abysmal choices Diane Paulus made with the current revival of 1776, and now Miranda Cromwell has inserted so many needless extras, that she dilutes the piece, and her direction, from Willy to the boys, is all over the place.

When Willy walks in, we know he is a tired salesman, and his prospects are dim. But as played by Mr. Pierce, we don’t see him so much as tired but of someone who is losing his mind and hallucinating. He is brash, bombastic and a blowhard. There is no descent to the man. He is a loser from the start. He is a man who lives on dreams and blows smoke into his sons and they in turn are failures like him. Mr. Pierce doesn’t imbue Willy with any shadings; he’s bombastic throughout the show and there is no progression or arc to his character.

Biff and Happy never talk to each other; they’re always either whining or screaming with each other about their differences, gripes, and about their father. This is where a strong director steps in to modulate performances for all three men and to give their characters dimension and let the audience ultimately figure out they are losers and not know this from the onset.

There is also Ben Loman (André De Shields), Willy’s much older brother. He left Willy when he was very young. Ben went into the jungle at 17 and came out a millionaire at 21. Mr. De Shields is a theatrical treasure. He is almost in the same costume and character as Hermes, messenger from the Gods, from Hadestown. Thankfully, he seems to be yet again the messenger from the Gods. But who cares? He can walk across the stage with his glitz and we are dazzled by him.

Ms. Cromwell is not helped at all by her set designer, Anna Fleischle. Last year she did a brilliant job with Martin MacDonagh’s Hangmen. Here the space compendium is nonexistent. In a crucial scene in Act I where Willy is having one of his breakdowns with Linda, young Biff, Happy, Willy’s mistress and others, scenes shift from the Loman’s backyard to Boston. The scene is so confusing from what is past and what is present and where are these scenes taking place. In another instance in Act II, when Biff calls his mother to tell her about dinner with dad, the phone rings, Linda picks up the phone in the living room, and a TV monitor at a bar turns on and, in squawky cartoon sounds, Biff is talking to Linda while she is instructing him to behave well with his dad. Someone has to explain how that absurd idea came to be.

Laughs are not a staple in Death of a Salesman. However, Ms. Cromwell felt that comic relief was needed in the form of Willy coming across as a blustering Ralph Kramden from “The Honeymooners” on a bad day.

Let’s just say thank you to Sharon D. Clarke and may she reign supreme on Broadway for years to come in better Broadway productions. The woman is the bravest Linda Loman I have ever seen on the stage.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published October 13, 2022
Reviewed at October 12, 2022 press performance.

‘DEATH OF A SALESMAN’: The cast. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘DEATH OF A SALESMAN’: Wendell Pierce & Sharon D. Clarke. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘DEATH OF A SALESMAN’: Blake De Long & Wendell Pierce. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘DEATH OF A SALESMAN’: McKinley Belcher III, Wendell Pierce & Khris Davis. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘DEATH OF A SALESMAN’: (left to right) Khris Davis, (top left) Wendell Pierce, Sharon D. Clarke & McKinley Belcher III. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘DEATH OF A SALESMAN’: (left to right) Sharon D. Clarke, Wendell Pierce & Khris Davis. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘DEATH OF A SALESMAN’: Wendell Pierce. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘DEATH OF A SALESMAN’: Sharon D. Clarke. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘DEATH OF A SALESMAN’: André De Shields. Photo: Joan Marcus.

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‘HADESTOWN’: Reeve Carney & Eva Noblezada. Photo: Matthew Murphy

HADESTOWN
Book, music & lyrics by Anais Mitchell
Directed by George C. Wolfe
Choreographed by David Neumann
Walter Kerr Theatre
219 West 485th Street
212-239-6200, www.hadestown.com

By David NouNou

Although it has come late in the season, we have the winner for best musical. Hadestown is a towering theatrical journey to hell. It’s sort of a metaphor for the times in which we live.

Based on the Greek tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice, and his journey to hell to rescue her back from the dead, this tale is set in New Orleans. Our Orpheus (Reeve Carney) is the sweetest and gentlest of souls who works in a café and Eurydice (Eva Noblezada) is a wandering waif who crosses Orpheus’ path and he falls madly in love with her. To narrate all that happens or will happen is Hermes (the remarkable Andre DeShields). He is like the emcee in Cabaret.

The rulers of Hadestown are Hades (Patrick Page) and Persephone (Amber Gray). Persephone comes up and joins the living every summer. She has a wild time entertaining all by wining and dining but has to return to Hades back in the winter. Eurydice being poor, cold and hungry goes down with Persephone on the false illusion that life will be better down there, only to find the grind and misery that prevails.

There are also the muses who butt into everyone’s lives and not for the good. It is up to Orpheus upon realizing the loss of Eurydice, on how he is going down to Hadestown and how he will rescue her from the grip of Hades.

What makes this journey bearable is the remarkable score by Anais Mitchell. It is jazz- infused, rhythmic, pulsating and palpable. From the opening song “Road to Hell” to the closing number in Act I, “Why We Build the Wall,” the music and lyrics are all arresting and haunting. “Why We Build the Wall” is a chilling reminder of where we’re at in 2019, but in actually it was written years before the ongoing nightmare we live with today. The score is phenomenal throughout till the end, the reprise of “Road to Hell.”

The cast is superb, headed by the indefatigable Andre DeShields, a theater legend. His Hermes is the velvet protector of the lost. Patrick Page is spine chilling as Hades, especially when it comes to singing “Why We Build the Wall.” Amber Gray’s Persephone is sheer delight and can lure anyone to go down to Hades with her. Eva Noblezada was enchanting in the 2017 revival of Miss Saigon, and she is in good voice here. Reeve Carney is guileless as Orpheus.

Director Rachel Chavkin has outdone herself here. Her Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 overloaded the senses to distraction, but here she has brilliantly modulated the proceedings and is greatly abetted by the overwhelming set by Rachel Hauck.

The nightmarish story is not necessarily uplifting, but the theatrical experience is priceless.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published April 22, 2019
Reviewed at April 21, 2019 press performance.

‘HADESTOWN’: Amber Gray & cast. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘HADESTOWN’: Eva Noblezada & cast. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘HADESTOWN’: (left to right) Amber Gray, Patrick Page & Reeve Carney. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘HADESTOWN’: Eva Noblezada & cast. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘HADESTOWN’: Amber Gray & cast. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘HADESTOWN’: Patrick Page & Amber Gray. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘HADESTOWN’: Reeve Carney. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘HADESTOWN’: (left to right) Jewelle Blackman, Kay Trinidad & Yvette Gonzalez-Nacer. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘HADESTOWN’: Andre De Shields. Photo: Matthew Murphy.

‘HADESTOWN’: The cast. Photo: Matthew Murphy

The post ‘Hadestown’ is one hell of a great musical appeared first on StageZine.