by Arthur Miller
A Delphi Production
now playing at the Lyric Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue.
"A good look in the mirror……."
The most chilling aspect of Arthur Miller's shattering Death of a Salesman is that it plays so succinctly on the material dreams so many of us live for and yet in reality fail to achieve. What makes this remarkable piece so continually attractive to an audience is that the broken Willy Loman could be one of them. It strikes an almost sinister chord.
Death of a Salesman is arguably Miller's finest play and Robert Falls' faithful production, despite being set in the late 1940s has a timeless feel to it. Miller reminds you that the script of human nature across the ages remains the same; it is just the tools around us that change the scenery.
Willy Loman is a 60-year-old salesman, over the hill and exhausted. He has had his day and Brian Dennehy reprises the role superbly as his immense frame stumbles across the stage trying to be the young man he will never be again. He is proud and the eternal optimist, supported faithfully by his beleaguered wife, Linda, the exquisite Clare Higgins who must surely be on her way to a second Olivier as best actress for her portrayal. His sons, Biff and Happy, try to live up to their father's expectations - each failing in their own respective way. Douglas Henshall plays the demanding character of Biff, the mixed up tear-away who can never settle and Mark Bazely, his womanising brother who is equally yet to settle to anything meaningful.
In the concentrated twenty-four hour period Death of a Salesman is a set in, Loman's life begins to unravel as he is sacked and his hope for Biff's comeback are dashed.
Robert Falls's production is definitive and emotionally exhausting. He has drilled his cast to perfection and the atmosphere in the house as Loman's demise gathers apace was eerie as the shiver ran down everyone's spine. Brian Dennehy's performance touched every one and was both volcanic in its sheer power and yet at the same time as frail as a spider's weave. Lomans' firing at the hands of Steve Pickering's Howard Wagner and the embarrassingly tragic restaurant scene afterward being some of the most powerful portrayals of pure emotion that I have seen on stage in a long time. It is, however, Henshall's Biff who takes the final hurdle so impressively as he rails against his now near broken father and unleashes himself from the demons that have hung about him so fatefully since his failure, in his father's eyes, as a teenage student. The family tragedy Miller unfolds is like some massive cold block of stone in its stark reality. Rarely have I been so moved and rarely are you so vividly reminded of your own mortality on this earth in such a harsh manner.
Falls' excellent cast, like some hard fought victorious rugby team, took their bow physically exhausted having given their 110 % best.
As he left the stage, the drained Dennehy, was endearingly patted on the back by Clare Higgins - would that we all could have joined her in his much deserved praise.
Death of a Salesman opened at the Lyric Theatre on 17th May.
Tickets 0870 890 1107
Reviewed by Harry Bucknall for Theatreworld Internet Magazine