Doors are the motif of choice in Sean Graney's moving, provocative and
startlingly successful revival of Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman."
As Graney imagines it, these hunks of varnished wood — which clutter a
stage at the Athenaeum Theatre — are apt markers for the tragic life of
Willy Loman. And Graney makes a formidable theatrical case.
Peeling doors constrict Willy's cramped Brooklyn home. He constantly has
to knock on corporate doors to sell himself, only to be met by a
lifetime of empty rooms. Willy's nightmares kick and scuff their way out
of his mind's doors — shadows of familial regret and a reminder of how
briefly boys can afford to be boys. And, driven to desperation, Willy
fatefully destroys his son by having a squalid affair behind the one
door on the stage bearing a room number.
By the end of the night, one of the doors has become the top of
Loman's coffin. Literally. And if you're not moved by Bill McGough's
dead salesman twisting one last door handle to lay himself down to an
uneasy rest in a hellish location, then you're composed like a brick
wall without an opening.
Since its the greatest American play of the
20th Century, "Death of a Salesman" rarely gets such conceptual takes.
Directors fear the charge of hubris. Understandably.
But it's a measure of the palpable quality of Graney's production for The
Hypocrites that one never feels that an auteur director is somehow messing
with the author's agenda — or even his original style. For those of us who
have seen or read this play scores of times, this is such a distinctive,
gripping and daring (and also unusually intimate) production that it lends
the familiar material a striking freshness.
It's not directorial cleverness but Miller's social observation and
emotional poignancy that one takes away. Long before "Six Feet Under" made
it fashionable to talk to dead relatives, Miller weaved Loman's
conversations with his brother, Ben, into the fabric of an otherwise
realistic work. In most productions, the Ben scenes are forced and
stylized — the weaker moments of a great play. But with the help of a
counter-intuitive performance from Kevin Keneally, Graney somehow makes
those chats pop out, HBO-style. It works splendidly.
And that's not the only notable achievement. The role of Biff has become,
over the years, a repository for ebullient acting from manly, emotionally
confident stars looking to chew up an old man. But Robert McLean's Biff is
a kid. A scared, dysfunctional, crying kid with neither confidence nor a
parental anchor. Which was Miller's whole point.
Elsewhere in this fine show, emotions run notably hot and deep, whether
it's Christopher Meister's kind Bernard kissing his Uncle Willy or Kurt
Ehrmann focusing in on Charley's anger and irritation as much as his
generosity. And Graney makes clear that Happy's women are whores, not
ambiguous goodtime girls in Midtown. Ryan Bollettino's Hap is a portrait
of the pathetic.
McGough's Willy is not some towering performance in Broadway mode. One
gets vocal hints of Chicago rather than requisite New York. And, as Lomans
go, McGough does not number among the flashily broken. But it's a
thoroughly truthful and right-headed performance — ably matched by Donna
McGough, McGough's real-life wife, playing an understated Linda — that
paints a hopelessly limited character who barely knew himself.
Graney designed the look of this show himself, along with Jim Moore. The
visuals — not just the doors but the way the circuitous playing area
suggests a rat trapped in a cage — are a remarkable achivement. Graney's
work is not only daring and distinctive but sophisticated and mature. It's
time some bigger doors around town opened for this fine young director.
Keep your eye on the doors. Doors that once were
welcoming but now are slammed shut. Doors that hide indiscretions. Doors
that seem to lead to opportunity. And doors that slam shut as you step
into the next world. Doors are the defining symbol of director Sean
Graney's tremendously engrossing and at moments even revelatory production
of "Death of a Salesman."
Arriving onstage just seven months after the death
of Arthur Miller, Graney and his always surprising company, the
Hypocrites, prove that there is still much to be learned from a classic,
and that the more you examine this defining work, the more remarkable and
soul-scouring it appears to be.
Like Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie,"
"Salesman" (which debuted on Broadway five years later, in 1949) is a
memory play -- a searing, Lear-like look at "a man who didn't know who he
was" and "had all the wrong dreams." But while Williams looked back at the
lingering despair of the Depression, Miller looked at his own moment, the
years right after World War II, and the fate of one flawed but very human
man and his family. This was a time when America was booming, when
"getting ahead" was the clarion cry and when a certain ruthlessness was
replacing what once might have been termed "the gentleman's way" of doing
business. Doors flew open for some but were rudely closed on others, and
Willy Loman was ill-equipped for the change.
The power of Graney's fast-moving, crystal-clear production (and if
anyone doubts Graney is one of the most insightful directors now at work
in Chicago, this production should set them straight), lies in both its
speed and its microscopic reading of the text. Even those who've seen
"Salesman" countless times before may wonder why they never quite picked
up on the green velvet bedroom slippers worn by the legendary older
salesman so admired by Willy Loman. And while they may have noticed that
Willy's favorite son, Biff, had a propensity for stealing -- more out of
anger and frustration than need -- they might not have fully felt the
damaging sense of shame these little thefts caused. Small things, perhaps,
but crucial, and they make all the difference, as does the sense of how
Willy's weaknesses have been transmitted to his sons in intriguingly
different ways.
Willy and Linda Loman are played by Bill McGough and Donna McGough,
first-rate actors who happen to be husband and wife in real life. He is
physically smaller and less blustery than Brian Dennehy, the most notable
actor to play Willy in recent years; he also is more adept at seeming
average and lost.
"I don't have a thing in the ground," Willy says, late in the play,
worrying about the state of his garden. But as a man in his early 60s --
one payment away from owning his house, just dismissed from the job where
he'd worked for more than three decades and estranged from the sons whose
approval he craves more than anything -- it sums up his complete sense of
rootlessness and his realization that he never had a firm foundation. As
Linda, Donna McGough, a petite beauty, is all solicitousness, forever
trying to ease the rift between father and sons.
And about those sons. There is Biff (a stoical yet impassioned Robert
McLean), who, even in his golden days as a high school football champion
-- and before a life-altering moment of disillusionment with his father
that sets him adrift for life -- was a deeply flawed person. And there is
Happy (expert work by Ryan Bollettino), forever ignored by his father,
forever seeking his attention and ultimately a crass womanizer and
ne'er-do-well who is like a grotesquely magnified version of Willy.
Hovering around the play are the success stories: Willy's neighbor
Charley (a carefully understated Kurt Ehrmann), and his son Bernard
(Christopher Meister, especially masterful in his adult guise), the
nerd-turned-powerhouse attorney, and Uncle Ben (Kevin Kenneally, with a
deftly mythic presence), Willy's adventurous brother who made his fortune
in Africa while still a young man.
The ensemble acting, especially impressive in its conjuring of family
intimacy, also features solid supporting performances by Lisa Comer, Jason
Powers, Erin Myers, Tammy Stackpoole and Chuck Patella. In fact, one of
the great strengths of Graney's production is the way he reveals how
almost every character is filled with a quiet desperation and a readiness
to compromise morally for some version of success.
The work of the designers -- Charles Cooper (whose ever-shifting
lighting suggests the worlds of both memory and reality), Alison Siple
(whose fine period costumes add color) and Michael Griggs (whose musical
underscoring is subtle and haunting) -- add greatly to the effect. And the
set -- a kind of precarious, dizzying carousel of doors created by Graney
and Jim Moore -- makes possible an image of suicide (a literal shutting of
the door on oneself) that will not be quickly forgotten.
Both as a director and as a playwright, Graney continually obsesses
about the human craving for connection and the twisted mechanism that
makes it so difficult for people to make that connection. In "Death of a
Salesman" he has found ideal material with which to probe this notion
further.
The Hypocrites' season also will include "4.48 Psychosis" (at the
Steppenwolf Garage, Nov. 10-Dec. 23), by the late British playwright Sarah
Kane, and "Angels in America" (co-produced with Bailiwick Repertory, March
5-April 30), Tony Kushner's epic.
'DEATH OF A SALESMAN'
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
When: Through Oct. 16 Where: The Hypocrites at the Athenaeum Theatre, 2936 N. Southport
Tickets: $20 Call: (773) 902-1500
Up in the Athenaeum's second-floor
studio echoes the sound of one man slowly imploding. In its most
avant-garde move yet, the Hypocrites take a straight-up approach to Arthur
Miller's most American of classics, "Death of a Salesman." And in the
process, the company breathes new life into a play that has been co-opted
in recent memory by the hulking presence of Brian Dennehy in the title
role of Willy Loman, first at the Goodman, later on Broadway, and
currently on stage in London.
Director Sean Graney goes for something different, casting a tallish
beanpole with a slight middle-aged paunch named Bill McGough. The guy
looks like every other schmo who's reached the age of sixty and feels,
justifiably or not, he has nothing to show for it. With a thin and gravely
voice like Hal Holbrook, McGough is altogether infuriating--just as he
should be. Time and again, he defies us to feel sorry for a man who's
shaped his life around delusions and half-baked truths.
The rest of the cast--including Donna McGough (wife of Bill McGough) as
Linda Loman, and Robert McLean and Ryan Bollettino as the Loman boys--does
a fine job filling in the play's emotional context, often to devastating
effect. It's a hell of a psychological workout, and at the end Graney
gives us one last vision of Willy as he steps, literally, into his own
grave. Talk about an image.
The Hypocrites' "Death of a Salesman" plays at The Athenaeum Theater,
2936 North Southport, (312)902-1500, through October 16.
The Hypocrites' production of what may be the most analyzed of Arthur
Miller's plays succeeds for lots of reasons. But a key factor is director
Sean Graney's ability to weave together Willy Loman's present and past
with a tensile intelligence and visual elan, evident in the clever set
Graney designed with Jim Moore. It helps that Willy and Linda are played
by real-life couple Bill and Donna McGough, who deliver performances with
a lived-in level of believability. This is a relatively muted take on
Willy's last days, which befits the chamber setting--a studio theater at
the Athenaeum--and makes the play's occasional spiky outbursts all the
more effective. The show is well worth seeing if only to marvel at how
Graney and his excellent cast handle the breathtaking final 15 minutes,
but the rest of the production's three hours offers many riches as well.
Through 10/16: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 3 PM. Athenaeum Theatre, second-floor
studio theater, 2936 N. Southport, 312-902-1500. $20. --Kerry Reid
Arthur Miller's classic gets
strong revival by Hypocrites
Real-life husband-and-wife Bill
and Donna McGough head up
The Hypocrites' stellar production of Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman"
BY BARBARA VITELLO Daily Herald Staff Writer Posted Thursday, September 08, 2005
A gifted cast, discerning direction and an intriguing set make for The
Hypocrites' eloquent revival of "Death of a Salesman," Arthur Millers'
Pulitzer Prize-winning tragedy about a low man destroyed by his unwavering
devotion to the American dream, which unbeknownst to him, does not come
one size fits all.
Dreams must be custom-made. With a proper fit they bring contentment
and security; without it, they're filled with despair and regret.
Miller's doomed protagonist Willy Loman fails to find a dream that
fits.
Rejecting the tradesman's flannel shirt for the salesman's gray flannel
suit, he abandons the promise of fulfillment on the frontier (the life his
brother, father and son chose which he seems destined for too). Instead he
consigns himself to the urban jungle where his meager success does not
ease the longing in his soul and where his dream ends up in tatters.
That Miller's aching indictment of a society that values material worth
over personal satisfaction, style over substance and professional success
over all resonates as powerfully today as it did upon its premiere 56
years ago, testifies to the playwright's eloquence and acumen. That people
willfully and happily buy into that myth reveals just how hard some dreams
die.
The brilliant Bill McGough stars as Willy, the aging traveling salesman
no longer at the top of his game.
Increasingly agitated about his dwindling income and downward spiraling
career, Willy suffers an emotional breakdown that shatters his fragile
family consisting of wife Linda, (the quietly graceful Donna McGough,
playing opposite her real life husband), Biff (Robert McLean, inspiring as
the prodigal son who confronts harsh reality) and Happy (Ryan Bollettino,
robust and charming who brings depth to the static role of a man destined
to repeat his father's mistakes).
Each performance in this highly accomplished revival exemplifies the
fine sense of dynamics courtesy of Sean Graney's well-modulated direction.
The production also features arresting visuals from Graney (who has a
penchant for them) and an intriguing, raked set by Graney and Jim Moore
where the furniture is askew and the backdrop consists of the closed doors
Willy has too often encountered.
McGough delivers a thoughtful, deliberate performance as a man weighed
down by failure and guilt, whose stooped shoulders, quivering voice and
darting eyes speak of his fear and loneliness. McGough skillfully
punctuates his slow crescendo toward despair and madness with affection
and humor that reflects a the keen sense of dynamics that defines good
acting.
Donna McGough turns in a tour-de-force performance as the kindly,
long-suffering and resolute wife who defends her husband with the ferocity
of a lioness protecting her cubs. Hers is an unhurried, wonderfully
cadenced performance, wonderfully expressed in her "attention must be
paid" speech which is powerful for its restraint.
Alternately desperate and accommodating, McLean delivers an expressive
and heartfelt performance. His thousand-yard stare at the end of Act I as
he contemplates the professional oblivion looming is priceless and his
strangled cries at uncovering his father's indiscretions are
heartbreaking. And his final declaration of independence thrills and
devastates.
The outstanding supporting cast includes Kurt Ehrmann, projecting quiet
strength and clear-headed compassion as Charley, Willy's neighbor and only
friend. Other standouts include Christopher Meister as Bernard, the butt
of the Loman's jokes turned successful lawyer and Jason Powers as the
young, not entirely unsympathetic boss who doesn't let family ties impact
his business decisions.
Ultimately, the tragic flaw that destroys Willy isn't his unquestioning
acceptance of a frayed American dream, it is his lack of insight (or his
unwillingness to act the little he possesses) and his infidelity not just
to his wife but to the man he should have been. Unfaithful to his true
nature, he pursues the wrong dream, sealing his own fate.
"Death of a Salesman"
“Death of a Salesman”
Written by Arthur Miller
REVIEWED BY
LAWRENCE BOMMER
Contributing writer - Chicago Free Press
Arthur Miller’s 1949 tragedy of
the common man is misnamed—of course it depicts the life of its salesman:
the suicide is just the last gasp of a dead-end dream. From the start
Willy Loman had a bum vision—the American dream. He says it all in
stumbling poetry: “I still feel kind of temporary about myself.”
Willy roots his self-respect in a
treacherous American credo—that cutting corners, making contacts and being
liked count more than doing the work; appearance outweighs achievement; if
you get ahead it won’t matter how you did it—“It’s not what you say, it’s
how you say it, because personality always wins the day.”
When a rapidly disintegrating
Willy loses his job, it’s poetic justice—the job lost him long before.
On Willy’s last day alive his
failed son Biff, a liar and thief, at last catches on to how much he’s
swallowed his father’s self-deception (even though at 18 he had exposed
his father in the worst way). Paralyzed by his life’s waste, Biff’s
anguished repudiation—“Why am I trying to become what I don’t want to
be?”—kills Willy as much as the car will.
Few plays make an audience care
so intensely for a central character who’s so wrong. The tension of
watching Willy’s massive denial ought to be equaled by the relief we feel
when, at the cost of madness and worse, he surrenders the lie.
But it’s not—we know the lie was
all that kept Willy going. Now, well, we know he’s literally worth more
dead than alive. In America planned obsolescence applies to people as much
as appliances.
Over the last 56 years, directors
have crafted the inevitability of this modern Greek tragedy in different
ways, shaping how the play’s cascading memory flashbacks create a running
madness in Willy’s mind that only he—and we—see.
In Dustin Hoffman’s version (at
the Auditorium Theatre in 1984)Willy was much more the broken loner and
klutzy loser, a contrast to Lee J. Cobb’s original salesman, who was
outgoing, glad-handed and ruthlessly self-destructive. At Goodman Theatre
and on Broadway, Brian Dennehy turned Willy into a human train wreck who
raged magnificently against the exposure of his dream.
Sean Graney’s lacerating revival
centers on Bill McGough’s self-effacing, sad-sack Willy. Drained, doomed,
and elegiac, this near-survivor is trapped in a literal world of closed
doors, the final one opening only to his grave. McGough’s bracing
ordinariness makes Willy stand for the world’s many Mr. Cellophanes.
Though period-perfect in her
demure demeanor, Donna McGough proves a stalwart defender of her broken
man. Robert McLean memorably plays the son who frees himself from a
lifetime of lies. Finally, as Willy’s only friend, Christopher Meister
conveys the quiet decency that might have saved Willy if he could only
listen.
Through 10/16: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 3 PM. Athenaeum Theatre, second-floor
studio theater, 2936 N. Southport, 312-902-1500. $20. --Kerry Reid
