Brian Dennehy is the latest in a long line of Hollywood stars to appear in the West End, and judging by the standing ovation he received on press night he's not just the new boy on the block but the newly-crowned king of the castle.
The contrast between his appearance - a sort of crumpled Henry VIII - and his character's position in life - a failed salesman at the end of his career, reduced to borrowing money every week from a neighbour he's secretly jealous of - makes his playing of the role all the more poignant.
Death of a Salesman, directed here at the Lyric by Robert Falls, designed by Mark Wendland and with very effective lighting by Michael Philippi, is one of Arthur Miller's most powerful plays, a scathing attack on the merciless self-interest of capitalism and on the folly of living your life in a world of lies and evasions: you may be looking through rose-tinted glasses, Miller says, but the red you're seeing is your own anger, and the flames that are coming to get you in your own private hell.
As Willy Loman, the salesman, Dennehy gives a staggering performance - literally so as he reels around the stage in despair, crashing to the ground on one occasion like a one of those giant industrial chimneys that, worn out and no longer wanted, are dynamited into ground-shaking rubble.
The dynamite is provided by his son, Biff, played by Douglas Henshall. Biff's relationship with his father is at the heart of the story. Why did this one-time golden boy with a brilliant sports career ahead of him turn into a complete no-hoper, drifting from one state and dead-end job to another? The secret isn't revealed until half-way through Act II, and when it comes it makes everything that has preceded it crystal clear. It also makes the final reconciliation (of sorts) between father and son incredibly powerful, and it's astonishing that Dennehy and Henshall manage this level of acting twice a day on matinee days.
This isn't just a two-man show, however. Howard Witt (another American actor) gives a wonderfully dry, witty performance as Charley, Willy's friendly neighbour, and as Linda Loman, Willy's long-suffering wife, Olivier award-winning actress Claire Higgins proves once again that though she doesn't have the same box-office pull or public recognition of Dames Judi Dench and Maggie Smith, she's got an astonishing stage presence and ought to be in line for a Damehood herself before long. She gives Linda a remarkable dignity and decency, and though she plays the traditional female role (the play was, after all, first seen in 1949) of sewing, darning and running the house, it's clear that she's the most centred and sensible member of the family. Her passionate pleas for Willy's sons (Henshall plus Mark Bazeley as 'Happy', the younger son who is a womanising fraud based on the same model as Willy) to give their father some sort of respect and sympathy as he falls apart before their eyes, was one of the highlights of an evening that ended with her slumped over Willy's grave, with the lights going down on her broken figure, howling in despair.
As you'll have gathered this is, apart from some moments of comic relief, very much a tragedy, and at nearly three hours it's more than that, it's an epic. But it remains, over fifty years after it was first written, a classic of twentieth century American drama. Miller, who died earlier this year, was a great fan of British theatre and preferred to premier some of his later plays in the West End rather than on Broadway. If he's looking down from the great theatre in the sky he'll be thrilled that one of his best-known works has been staged so well in the heart of London's theatreland.