Theatre in Review: Death of a Salesman (Hudson Theatre)

	Khris Davis, Wendell Pierce, Sharon D. Clarke, McKinley Belcher III. Photo: Joan Marcus

Since the 1970s, Willy Loman has, on average, visited us every dozen years or so, riding on a shoeshine and a smile (as playwright Arthur Miller so memorably put it) and heading for a crackup from which there is no return. It's not surprising: Death of a Salesman, a play thoroughly rooted in mid-twentieth-century America, speaks to us with unnerving accuracy. We still live in a country that treats capitalism as a philosophy and business as a religion; today, our secular saints are named Musk and Zuckerberg instead of Ford and Getty but the national belief in go-getting is undiminished. As in 1949, the American dream promises limitless achievement, fulfillment without end; then again, it might all be a crock.

The revival at the Hudson, which comes from London, features, for the first time in my experience, a Black Loman family. This is less of an innovation than it might seem at first; in its bid for universality, Miller's script allows for the casting for actors of nearly any race or ethnicity without cognitive dissonance. (Miller himself directed a famous production in Beijing.) The best thing about Miranda Cromwell's sometimes uncertain production is the opportunity it gives four lead actors to do strong, stunning, and, in some cases, highly original work.

Wendell Pierce, first seen in overcoat and hat, lugging those heavy suitcases, and silhouetted by Jen Schriever's lighting, is every inch the aging traveling man coming to the end of the road, and his rope. Pierce offers an unusually feisty interpretation, driven by the remaining bursts of sparkplug energy that once propelled Willy through his New England territory; when he grabs his wife, Linda, for an impromptu dance step, you can feel the attraction that still binds them. But sitting side by side with his professional ebullience, his practiced glad-handing, is a hair-trigger temper that is his only defense against the awful truth: Time, vitality, and money are running out and Willy has nothing to show for it. Hence, the sudden rages, the constant muttering to himself, and the penchant for slipping into memories, possibly illusory, of past successes.

Pierce has a thorough grasp of Willy's contradictions, his craving for love and his dependence on the lies that keep him from understanding the sad, sordid place at which he has arrived. (Miller plants lines that delineate the stark differences between then and now; during a rosy-hued flashback, Willy says, beaming, "Chevrolet, Linda, is the greatest car ever built." In the pinched, ugly present, faced with another bill he can't pay, he snaps, "That goddam Chevrolet! They ought to prohibit the manufacture of that car!") The actor doesn't soft-pedal Willy's bullying side, nastily silencing Linda while indulging in his latest unlikely fantasy of striking it rich. And when forced by his son, Biff, to grapple with the reality that he is just a buck-chasing mediocrity, the anguish in Pierce's voice ("You're trying to put a knife in me!") is matched by the terror in his eyes. He easily earns his place alongside Dustin Hoffman, Brian Dennehy, and Philip Seymour Hoffman, each of whom put his stamp on this greatest of roles.

Sharon D. Clarke delivers an unusually gutsy Linda, here seen as the glue holding her fractious family together and earning little or no credit for it. In many productions, Linda exists in Willy's shadow; instead, Clarke exudes a cool efficiency in managing her hot-tempered brood; unlike her husband, she knows who she is and needs no approval. Her warning, that Willy is on a fast track to self-destruction, is especially gripping, as is the climactic confrontation when, disgusted with her sons' selfishness, she turns against them, banishing them from her sight. Clear-eyed and rooted in a fundamental strength, Clarke gives this classic character fresh contours without abrogating the author's intentions.

The role of Biff, Willy and Linda's tarnished golden-boy offspring, requires an actor unafraid of the character's darkest impulses; Khris Davis makes Biff painfully self-aware ("I'm like a boy. I'm not married. I'm not in business.") yet, in his deep-seated desire to please Willy, equally prone to delusion. The actor is especially uncompromising when Biff, returning from a humiliatingly ill-advised attempt at securing capital from a former employer, sees himself for what he is: a drifter, a loser, a sometime petty thief still living off his moment of high school sports stardom. Davis pulls no punches in the brutal, bruising father-son faceoff ("You were never anything but a hard-working drummer who landed in the ash can like all of them!") that sets the stage for Willy's fatal denouement. Happy, the other Loman son, is something of a lightweight, and not every actor playing him makes a strong impression; McKinley Belcher III is fearless in exposing him as a prisoner of his own impulses, a boozer and skirt-chaser who derives no pleasure from his seedy pursuits.

The production is marked by several incisive supporting performances, including Delaney Williams as Willy's one true friend, whose offer of a second chance is brusquely rebuffed; Stephen Stocking as Williams' son, who, loved and nurtured with solid values, matures into a man of substance; Blake DeLong in a strong double turn as the callow employer who pushes Willy aside and a waiter familiar with Happy's tomcatting ways; and Lynn Hawley as the vulgar blonde pickup who causes the irreparable break between Willy and Biff.

If Cromwell gets incisive work from her cast, she also seems to be struggling to find a fresher approach to material that resists high-concept interpretations. The flashback sequences, evoking the family's allegedly happier past, are interrupted by such irritating mannerisms as the sound of camera clicks and freeze-frame effects, as if we're looking at photos from the Loman family album. The director also allows (or, perhaps, has encouraged) Davis and Belcher to play the younger Biff and Happy in exaggeratedly boyish fashion, a form of commentary that is jarringly out of place with the rest of the company. And, as Ben, the phantom older brother who haunts Willy's imagination, André De Shields, accompanied by his own personal fog bank and purple lighting, carries on as if fresh off the boat from Hadestown.

The production design further casts a pall on the production. Anna Fleischle's gloomy, characterless set design, with tables, chairs, windows, and water heaters hanging overhead, is surely difficult to light; in response, Schriever employs a variety of interesting ideas that never coalesce into a coherent approach. (Fleischle's costumes are, generally, rather better.) Mikaal Sulaiman's sound design, including jazz on the radio, street traffic, and a terrifying car crash, is solidly done, but Femi Temowo's music, informed by blues guitar gospel sounds, doesn't feel organic to the play, even in a production with Black principals. I wonder if a more sustained use of jazz music might be more suitable.

Still, the painful core of this pre-eminent American tragedy is preserved, and even invigorated, by Pierce and his co-stars. As Charley, Willy's friend and neighbor, comments, a smile is the currency a salesman offers to his customers. "And when they start not smiling back -- that's an earthquake." At the Hudson, you'll feel the earthquake in its full force. --David Barbour