This timeless, powerful story takes you on a thrilling journey through the final 24 hours of Willy Loman’s life, filled with his memories, dreams, struggles and pitting a Father’s expectations against his sons’ realities.
 
This powerful and moving story explores the sacrifices people make in pursuit of the ‘American Dream’. Heart-breaking and thought-provoking, it’s a timeless tale of ambition, family, and the cost of chasing success.

Often cited as one of the greatest plays of the 20th century (and written by one of the greatest American playwrights, Arthur Miller), Death of a Salesman was a production I was relishing the chance to see.

This production, directed by Andy Arnold, and starring David Hayman (Sid and Nancy, Dad’s Army) in the infamous character role of Willy Loman, pushes and pulls on your emotions for the duration, as we watch a significant chunk of Loman’s life flash before his and our eyes, as it indeed approaches its end.

Supported by a strong, all Scottish cast, we’re taken through Willy’s adult relationships, including with his wife Linda (Beth Marshall), sons Biff (Daniel Cahill) and Happy (Michael Wallace), friend Charley (Benny Young), his son Bernard (Gavin Jon Wright) and long, and recently ‘lost’ in every sense of the word, older brother Ben (Stewart Ennis).

At the outset, we see a tired, no, exhausted Willy arrive home from Boston and surrounding areas, another week of travelling in his 35 years+ as a salesman. A physically (and it soon transpires, spiritually) broken man, he’s struggling in life against a backdrop of the American dream of prosperity.

His paycheck (now reduced to commission-only) is divided up intohire purchase payments. As the house approaches pay-off, the more it empties of people.

One such person, returning temporarily to the nest, is son Biff, now a man in his 30s and still unable to ‘find himself’. His mother sympathetic to his plight, his father less so and there is a clear tension between the two which, as the story slowly unfolds, the reason for which the audience becomes privy to…

This production cleverly interweaves past and present, portrayal of the former providing clarity and reason as to the present, as Willy’s final 24 hours progress and truths unravel.

Never confusing, the performances layer and overlap beautifully, with scenes from the past almost feeling ethereal in nature without a reliance on special effects, gimmicks or props, but rather in the juxtaposition with which they’re presented in the modern day. Indeed the ever presence of the cast on stage, seated to the side until the time to take centre, assists in this fluidity.

First presented to its public in 1948, Death of a Salesman, deals in themes which are as relevant to audiences today as they were 77 years ago.

As Director, Andy Arnold notes,

(Arthur Miller) delivered a play which was able to communicate so powerfully with the fears and concerns of everyday people – whether that be in the insecurity of the workplace, the tensions and battles within the family, or the consequences of love and betrayal.

Devastatingly sad and not without a few life lessons and stark warnings of ‘there but for the grace of god could go yous’, Death of a Salesman is real, raw and a mirror held up to life, which you will take home with you, along with a sense of having just witnessed on stage, something very special more than worthy of the plaudits for a play and text, which have come before.

Standing ovation deserved.

Death of a Salesman is playing at the Lowry theatre until this Saturday 3 May. For more details, including full cast, creatives and to buy tickets, see Death of a Salesman | Lowry.

Production images: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan