‘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.

The post ‘Death of a Salesman’: Direction dilutes revival appeared first on StageZine.

‘SWEAT’: (left to right) John Earl Jelks, James Colby (behind bar), Michelle WIlson, Johanna Day & Alison Wright. Photo: Joan Marcus

SWEAT
By Lynn Nottage
Directed by Kate Whoriskey
Studio 54
254 West 54th Street
(212-239-6200), www.sweatbroadway.com

By Scott Harrah

Friendships among coworkers at a factory in Reading, Pennsylvania are tested in this gritty drama about working-class heroes and betrayal. The show, by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage, transferred to Broadway after a successful run last year at the Public Theater downtown. Sweat could not be more topical and timely. In addition, the ensemble cast is so powerful and the performances so strong that it is easy to overlook most of the thematic clichés and directing flaws.

Sweat is a Rust Belt epic that goes back and forth from 2000 to 2008, set in a factory town that typifies and reflects everything we heard about “battleground states” in last year’s presidential election, with union workers worried that their jobs will be shipped to cheaper plants in Mexico. Everything about that world is here, from talk of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) to xenophobia about “outsiders” and disenfranchised whites.

The story is told in both the past and present. The opening unfolds in 2008 as parole officer Evan (Lance Coadie Williams) gives the third degree to Chris (Khris Davis) and Jason (Will Pullen), both of whom have been friends for years. Next, we go back to 2000 to a bar in which most of the story takes place. The watering hole is run by Stan (James Colby), a guy who once toiled at the mill himself and has seen and heard the troubles of local workers all his life. We meet longtime factory worker Tracey (Johanna Day) and her friends and coworkers Cynthia (Michelle Wilson) and Jessie (Alison Wright). Tensions arise when Cynthia applies for a management job at the plant, irking Tracey and Jessie. Can coworkers remain friends with someone once she’s promoted to management? What follows is fairly predictable, but still mirror stories of layoffs, lockouts and broken dreams in factory towns across the USA.

Other characters include bar worker Oscar (Carlo Albán), the U.S.-born son of Colombian immigrants and Cynthia’s ex Brucie (John Earl Jelks), a substance abuser. Oscar unwittingly provides even more tension for Tracey as she realizes he may take a non-union job at the plant at a far lower hourly wage than she makes.

One of the show’s only problems is Kate Whoriskey’s uneven direction. Although Ms. Whoriskey gets first-rate performances from everyone, she and fight director U. Jonathan Toppo have trouble choreographing a violent fight scene in Act II.  While this scene is crucial, most of the stage combat comes across as awkward.

The characters are multi-faceted and realistic, and although Ms. Nottage’s twists are a bit hackneyed, the cast brings a sense of authenticity to these hard-working people faced with no hope. As the three lead women, Ms. Day, Ms. Wright and Ms. Wilson are all exceptional and yell and scream with conviction. Standouts of the show include Mr. Colby as Stan, giving a gut-wrenching performance, and Mr. Albán, whose portrayal of Oscar is infused with subtle honesty and integrity.

Ms. Nottage reportedly wrote the play after conducting countless interviews with real-life factory workers in Reading, and her research ultimately paid off because, despite some shortcomings, Sweat is a thought-provoking drama that is especially relevant in modern-day America.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published March 31, 2017
Reviewed at press performance on March 30, 2017

‘SWEAT’: (left to right) Alison Wright, Johanna Day, Khris Davis, James Colby, Carlo Alban & Will Pullen. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘SWEAT’: (left to right) Carlo Alban, John Earl Jelks, Johanna Day, Michelle Wilson & Johanna Wright. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘SWEAT’: (left to right) Johanna Day, Michelle Wilson, Carlo Alban & Alison Wright. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘SWEAT’: Michelle Wilson & Johanna Day. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘SWEAT’: Khris Davis & Lance Coadie Williams. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘SWEAT’: Alison Wright, Will Pullen & Michelle Wilson. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘SWEAT’: Will Pullen & Khris Davis. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘SWEAT’: Michelle Wilson & John Earl Jelks. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘SWEAT’: Alison Wright, Johanna Day & Michelle Wilson. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘SWEAT’: Johanna Day & Carlo Alban. Photo: Joan Marcus

The post ‘Sweat’: Working-class heroes, grit & betrayal appeared first on StageZine.