On March 16th I wrote the below Morning Ode to Death of a Salesman after reading about Philip Seymour Hoffman as Willy Loman, one of the great roles in American theatre, in the current Broadway revival.

I saw the play last night in New York and, once again, a night at the theatre has changed my experience of life in the brief span of the hours between 8:00 and 10:30pm.

What happens in a family when a man – a father and husband and average American worker – doesn’t know who he really is, which is what his son, Biff, calls the ultimate crime of Willy Loman’s life? What happens is that he deceives himself about everything – who is sons are and what they are capable of, and what role his wife must play in order to sustain the “picture” he has painted of himself, his family and his self-worth in his own mind. What happens is that he can’t see anything in an authentic way. His friendships are colored by jealousy or by being falsely impressed with the accomplishments of others. He becomes afraid of and angry at those who have power over him. He becomes filled with shame and in the end can neither ask for help when he himself needs it most in his life, nor can he give it to another when they need it from him. What happens is that his sense of love and honor become based on propping up what he needs to believe about himself in order to keep going.

What happens is that this ordinary man – this dime-a-dozen man, this traveling salesman – goes down a road on which he cheats on his wife – with a woman who means nothing to him because he means nothing to himself – creating a family dynamic such that no one can speak the truth, no one can be seen for whom they really are, no one can communicate honestly. Willy Loman, the classic traveling American salesman, becomes something to sell off himself – “A man is not a piece of fruit,” he shouts at his boss, before he is fired.

Oh, yes, he is.

If this all seems grim, it is. What is stunning is how the play has held up since the original production, in which Lee J. Cobb played Willy in 1949. It has held up because this universal theme is still very much a part of our cultural dialogue today and most especially so in the decade since 9/11, when so many people have lost jobs to worldwide financial chaos, when so many families have been plunged into a state of despair, when so many people are telling themselves to keep going, selling themselves, putting on their game faces, propping themselves up against the oncoming storm.

The question I kept asking myself during the play was: why does this happen to a man? What is the moment in time in a person’s life when it all goes seriously wrong? What is the hour, the minute, the second, when one’s life takes an irretrievable turn toward falseness and everyone one loves is dragged along with the ensuing tornado? This to me, is the meaning of Linda Loman’s (Willy’s wife’s) plea to her sons: “Attention, attention must be paid.”

The play’s themes, at the hand of playwright Arthur Miller, are richly layered and complex, and of course this is my own analysis of what those themes mean and how they touch on everything I see around me: Who are we? What are our dreams? Are we authentic? Do we love others and are we loved for who we are? Were we propelled down the road we are on because it is genuine to us? Or to our parents and their dreams for us? Or to some imaginary cultural pressure from which we cannot escape?

The relationship between Willy and his son, Biff, is heart-breaking: the desperation of a young man to be loved for who he is and to find his own way in life without being who his father wants him to be. I don’t have to look very far to pinpoint scores of well-known father/son relationships to illustrate that part of the play’s riches.

But at the directorial hand of Mike Nichols, one of the great American theatre and film directors (he directed The Graduate with Dustin Hoffman, who played Willy Loman in the first production of this play that I saw), it all came together more beautifully, more poignantly, more tightly woven than I’ve seen it before. Of course brilliant casting helps and the connection between Philip Seymour Hoffman John Glover (Ben), Linda Emond (Linda), Andrew Garfield (Biff), Finn Wittrock (Happy), was glorious.

And then there’s that director, Mike Nichols. What can I say? The Graduate, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe, Spamalot, Working Girl, Charlie Wilson’s War (in which Hoffman was also cast), The Odd Couple, Barefoot in the Park…the list is endless.

I went alone last night and while the theatre was filling up read the Playbill, which was a veritable Who’s Who of talent – producers Scott Rudin and Jean Doumanian, hair and makeup by David Brown, costumes by the brilliant Ann Roth.

To love theatre, you have to love what goes into ensemble work. And a family is an ensemble. And an office where one works is an ensemble. We are all part of ensembles of one size or another. We are all part of a cast. We play roles in our own personal plays and roles in the plays others cast us in. And the roles we play, the parts we accept and agree to, have a profound effect on the lives of everyone around us. We should think carefully before we accept the “role” we will play in our lives…because it’s difficult to go back.

I love the theatre. Tonight I go to see Tribes.

Thank you for reading. Have a lovely day.

Originally shared by Giselle Minoli

For all of you theatre lovers, a Morning Ode to Death of a Salesman,

The theatre has the power to change a person’s experience of life within the brief timespan of a few hours. You enter not knowing what to expect, and emerge with all your senses on fire, your intellect and emotions enhanced, pushed, pulled, stretched and tested, your belief systems challenged, every cell in your body viscerally affected by the experience of a great ensemble reaching into the depths of a playwright’s intention and laying it out for the audience to drink in.

This is what happened to me when I first had the chance to see Death of a Salesman, one of my all time favorite plays, on Broadway in 1984 with Dustin Hoffman as Willy Loman (Low Man on the Totem Pole). It was one of those blissful moments when the power of personal interpretation hit me over the head. Reading the play I had never thought of Willy as short and sprinting across the stage. But there he was, brought to life by the brilliant Dustin Hoffman. A different Willy than the one in my mind.

Fifteen years later I bought a ticket to the revival starring the huge Brian Dennehy as Willy, and, again, my mind was blown. How was it possible for the giant presence of Dennehy to ever be a Low Man on anyone’s Totem Pole – dejected, afraid, cast off, misused, ignored, insignificant? But there he was, brought to life by the brilliant Brian Dennehy. Another different Willy than the one in my mind.

Unfortunately, I hadn’t been born when the original production with the great Lee J. Cobb was produced in 1949, but I promised myself that I would see every incarnation of Death of a Salesman, one of the greats among American dramas, ever done on Broadway. And so last week I bought a ticket (before the attached review came out) to the current revival, which stars the extraordinary Philip Seymour Hoffman as Willy. There was an interview with him in the Times last week, which I read wondering why it had never occurred to me that Hoffman would make a brilliant Willy. Thank God Mike Nichols, one of the greatest American theatre and film directors ever, does not rely on me when it comes to what his next project should be.

I go on April 18th, ready, once again, to go in as though I have never seen the play, for surely every great actor makes the part their own, and to come out a changed person. For those of you who do not know this play, it is an American Drama For Our Times, even though it was written by Arthur Miller in 1949. But then again, many things are not so different now and it speaks to the eternal issue of what makes a man’s life worthwhile, worth living, his legacy, his impact on those around him. It is a must read. It is a must see. Attention…attention must be paid, again and again and again…

For those who are interested, I’ve attached links to the Times Reviews of this essential American play below.

Thank you, as always, for reading…and have a lovely Friday, all.

Giselle

Ben Brantley’s review of Brian Dennehy as Willy Loman:
http://theater.nytimes.com/mem/theater/treview.html?html_title=&tols_title=DEATH%20OF%20A%20SALESMAN%20(PLAY)&pdate=19990211&byline=By%20BEN%20BRANTLEY&id=1077011429728

Frank Rich’s review of Dustin Hoffman as Willy Loman:
http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/11/12/specials/miller-hoffstage.html

Brooks Atkinson’s review of Lee J. Cobb as Willy Loman:
http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/11/12/specials/miller-salesman49.html

http://theater.nytimes.com/2012/03/16/theater/reviews/death-of-a-salesman-with-philip-seymour-hoffman.html