Willy Loman lived his life based on a promise.
The tragic protagonist of Arthur Miller’s 1949 Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece Death of a Salesman will forever hang his hat on an imagined pact with America. The persistent notion is that this, the “Greatest Country in the World,” is a land of opportunity for anyone willing to work hard enough to earn their place here. We watch Willy buy into this ideology over and over again, until his failure to thrive finally breaks him. Joe Mantello’s heartbreaking (albeit uneven) production realizes Miller’s brilliance in a myriad of bold choices; some of them pay off, others don’t. But the genius of this great work of literature finally illuminates the current zeitgeist with a blazing theatricality.
Every production of this play must ultimately rise or fall on the shoulders of its title character. Nathan Lane creates a macabre sort of hopefulness for his Willy Loman and combines it with a poignant melancholy that makes his work here riveting. It’s extraordinary to watch a veteran actor eschew virtually everything he’s well-known for and still captivate us in each scene. It’s a masterful take on a well-worn character, and one that deserves serious recognition in a season full of exciting performances. But a huge part of what makes Lane so effective is that he has an unparalleled partner in Laurie Metcalf. It’s hardly news that she is one of our most invaluable theatre actresses, but Metcalf’s interpretation is equal to Lane’s in its sheer poignance. She brings a ferocity, particularly to the final scenes of each act, that I’ve never seen equalled in any of the other Linda Loman’s I’ve witnessed. She protects her husband with a fierceness born of both desperation and a passionate, uncompromising love for him. She is as clear-eyed as he is myopic, and this contrast creates the balance that keeps the marriage in a perpetual state of fantasy.
The other very good news is that Ben Ahlers almost steals the play as their younger son, Happy. The role is often portrayed as a kind of one-note, jokey lothario who is mostly there to give his brother Biff someone to play off of. But Ahlers imbues him with the kind of effortless charisma that will probably make him a star. He finds a panoply of moments, both comic and painful, to convey how forgotten he feels in that family. Forever in his brother’s shadow, Ahlers finds a dynamism that makes us almost guilty with each laugh he earns: they are all born of a deep pain Happy has no way of understanding or escaping. One can only hope we can keep Ahlers in the theatre at least a little while longer.
Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of Christopher Abbott’s take on Biff, but it’s not entirely his fault. Joe Mantello has made a bold directorial choice to cast younger actors to play both Biff and Happy as teenagers in the flashback scenes. While it was a notion Miller himself reportedly toyed with, it has never been tried before in a first class production, and I doubt it’ll happen again. While there are some benefits to a few of Willy’s act one memories, giving a different actor those moments to play robs Abbott of far too much of the dramaturgy that gives Biff his emotional arc. The only truly weak scene in the production is in the climactic hotel room in act two; this is the moment Biff’s entire life is upended, and Abbott doesn’t even get to play it. It also features Mantello’s most egregious misstep: when he directs Young Biff (Joaquin Consuelos) to offer the woman Willy has been caught with (a gutsy Tasha Lawrence) the box of stockings she’s been promised. This choice makes little sense and tears at the fiber of this vital scene. Mantello perhaps sensed some of these problems here and finally brings Abbott in as a kind of echo of his younger self, but it’s too little, too late. It’s hard to know what Abbott might’ve achieved playing Biff throughout the entire production, but as the evening progressed, he increasingly struck me as adrift, perhaps even miscast.
It’s a shame, because the rest of Mantello’s decisions are extremely strong ones. His casting of the supporting roles is uniformly excellent, with K. Todd Freeman providing an incisive take on the Loman’s neighbor, Charlie. Mantello’s collaboration with designer Chloe Lamford suggests a dilapidated purgatory, leaning far more deeply into the expressionistic style the play typically suggests. This proves to be a deeply effective scenic concept. It also combines with Rudy Mance’s pitch-perfect costumes to create a timelessness to the entire evening. Jack Knowles’s lighting is consistently inventive throughout. Lastly, I never thought someone could supply incidental music to equal Alex North’s invaluable score, but Caroline Shaw does just that. It’s evocative and beautiful.
As I departed through the fog of solemnity enveloping the Winter Garden (the final scenes of the play are brutal, the sobbing around me, palpable), something occurred to me: a well-staged, well-acted Death of a Salesman will always resonate with audiences. But the fuel that makes the engine of this revival run is the American promise that Willy clutches at, evoking our President’s promise to make the country “great again.” The desperation to look past our current, painful reality…the need for so many of his hoodwinked supporters to turn a blind eye… We are asked to continue to believe in the same “phony dream” Miller warns us of, despite daily pledges from Washington proving more insidious and hollow. Like the seeds in Willy’s hopelessly in-the-dark garden, how many more have to be wasted before the country figures it out: you can’t fake sunlight.
