[caption id="attachment_70686" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Philip Seymour Hoffman in “Death of a Salesman.”"]
“Death of a Salesman” * By Arthur Miller * Directed by Mike Nichols * Starring Philip Seymour Hoffman * Barrymore Theatre, 243 West 47th St.
Arthur Miller’s domestic tragedy, “Death of a Salesman,” first produced in 1949, is generally thought to be one of the two or three finest plays written by an American dramatist in the 20th century.
It does, however, have its enemies, and probably always did, starting with the central figure’s name, Willy Loman, which almost too easily can come across as “Low Man,” thereby becoming an indication of the character’s position in society.
Now Broadway has a new production, almost too scrupulously directed by Mike Nichols, excellent in most respects, but still trailing a few questionable aspects.
The basic problem is that the star, Philip Seymour Hoffman, excellent performer that he is, is too young for the role. The Oscar-winner Hoffman, who is of Irish descent on the maternal side of his family (his mother is Marilyn O’Connor, a former family court judge) is just 44. At moments, he seems not much older than Andrew Garfield and Finn Wittrock, the two young actors portraying his sons, Biff and Happy.
It’s true that the first Willy Loman, Lee J.Cobb, who had changed his name from Lee Jacobs, was in fact much younger than an ideally cast actor, but apparently the age disparity didn’t show as much then as it does with Hoffman.
A more general issue with all productions of the Miller play is the annoying but long entrenched academic attitude that maintains that in order to qualify as tragedy, a work must be concerned with individuals of exalted stature or, if possible, even actual nobility.
By that standard, “Death of a Salesman” obviously doesn’t really fully rank as tragedy. It will, however, have to do until something better comes along.
Nichols’s production is not so much a new staging as it is a recreation of the l949 show, using Jo Mielziner’s original multi-level set design and composer Alex North’s memorably lyrical musical score. Nichols even makes use of a lot of the blocking created by the original director, Elia Kazan.
What it amounts to in the end is a meticulous recreation of the original, something that is virtually never seen on Broadway, certainly not to the extent of this version.
“Death of a Salesman” was originally called “The Inside of His Head,” which isn’t so surprising, considering that “A Streetcar Named Desire” first bore the title “Poker Night.”
Kermit Bloomgarden, who produced the initial “Salesman,” hated the title Miller had given his play. The Bloomgarden has been widely quoted as having told the playwright that “with a different title, even a number,” he could have kept the show running on Broadway for an additional eight months or more.
At this point, the play is in its early sixties, more or less the age of Willy Loman himself. And, yes, without question, it still works, despite its limitations, as an epic exploration and examination of a certain specific kind of American failure.
Willy’s brave, realistic wife, Linda, is played this time by Linda Emond, who, fine as she is, is somehow never quite as poignant as Mildred Dunnock was in the several productions in which she appeared over the years, opposite a wide range of Willys, or in the film which followed.
This particular Linda comes close to being the grieving soul of the play.
Willy is, of course, a seasoned salesman who has lost the knack of pleasing people, and who now realizes, accurately, that he is no longer welcomed when he drives to the cities where his former customers are based.
His destiny is suicide, a fate with which he has at least pondered more than once in past days.
