Death of a Salesman
RST
Stratford-upon-Avon, 11th April 2015
It’s been a while. Over eighteen months. Not since going to the theatre but since
having the brain cells to write about it.
Having a baby causes life to accelerate and leap, all at the same time
as enduring nights that last forever!
But anyway, I’m older and I know it. This altered perception of time makes Arthur
Miller’s play even more poignant; for what is the point of art if we cannot
say, “I know this, it is me”?
Gregory Doran calls Death of a Salesman ‘the greatest American play of the 20th
century’ and it is. The themes are so
universal that it is up there with Shakespeare for enduring appeal. After all, the American Dream is now
everybody’s dream, to some extent. And
so it is hard to get it too wrong. The
play is immaculate. You can close your
eyes and listen and the words just lodge themselves inside the skull and
reverberate.
Still, better say something about the RSC’s
current production or there’s not much point in this: It’s excellent! The scenery was clever and well up to the job
of this play’s challenging layering of past and present. A canvas of large tenement blocks created an
oppressive back-drop to the Lomans’ house which was effective. Equally, lighting was used to good effect in
the scenes set in the past; the golden haze seeming to imply a ‘rose-tint’.
However, casting was where real genius was
evident. The smaller parts were as well
cast as the main parts, with Sarah Parks as The Woman being particularly
notable. As Willy’s often drunk,
stocking-greedy mistress she very nearly stole the show. Alex Hassell as Biff embodies perfectly the
golden boy of high school sporting achievement as well as being able to
convince as a washed-up has-been, drifting from one labouring job to the
next. In the interval, I overheard one
woman dub Hassell, “a fine specimen”.
Yes, quite. And Sam Marks as
Happy was equally fitting, being physically smaller than Biff but with all the
energy that his older brother has lost. Harriet
Walter as Linda conveyed all the tenderness that the part requires. Indeed, it was her words that had the most
impact. When she demanded of her sons
that ‘attention must be paid’ to her husband, the pain of the situation was
hard to bear.
It is a painful play. At the centre of the pain is, of course,
Willy Loman; in this performance played by Antony Sher. I don’t want to criticise the great man, but….
Firstly, his accent was odd. In the
opening scene this did jar. His ‘Brooklyn’
was laboured and slurred all at the same time.
This had the effect of making him seem a little mad, which of course he
is. Or rather, he is slowly going mad. And this was slightly the point as well;
because Sher begins with quite an exaggerated performance he does not really
have anywhere to go as the play moves towards its inevitable anti-climax. For this reason, I found the first half much
more compelling than the second.
However, I should add that my husband, who has somehow managed to get to
thirty-six without encountering the play, thought the second half was more
gripping so perhaps I’m being unfair.
Sher certainly does justice to the changeability in Willy. He was at once ridiculous and pitiable whilst
also managing a very real aggression that seemed to make him grow in
stature. And you stop noticing the funny
accent after the first scene!
