Death of the American Dream

Life is sweet in Willy Loman's front yard. Willy is a top-notch traveling salesman, his son Biff is an up-and-coming high school football hero, and his wife and second son stand basking in the warmth of their American Dream. It's too bad we have to go inside.

Because inside the kitchen of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman's life--and his family--are falling apart.

Death of a Salesman

By Arthur Miller

Directed by Andrew (Woddy) Hill

At the Leverett House Old Library

Tonight at 8 p.m. and 10:30 p.m.

Tomorrow night at 8 p.m.

Willy himself has been fooled by the picture-perfect facade of American life in the 1950s. His front-yard tales of high sales are blown apart by his wife's kitchen struggles to pay the bills. His claims of being "well-liked" in the business are revealed to be sadly exaggerated. His son Biff is devastated when confronted with the truth about his father. And a captive audience can only sit and watch as Willy's life crumbles under his feet.

The tragedy of Death of a Salesman, like Willy's expectations, can be overwhelming. Willy Loman's family is on the edge of collapse, and the level of intensity in Miller's script is on the edge of unbearable. Thankfully, Woody Hill's production of the play in the Leverett House Old Library balances expertly on that edge and renders a painfully beautiful shattering of the American Dream.

As an exploration of the roots of Willy's breakdown, Death of a Salesman straddles past and present, forcing the cast to portray a wide range of psychological stages that span 20 years. That these shifts are so gracefully performed is hardly surprising in a production as seamless as this one.

Tackling the transformation of Willy Loman from a struggling, middle-aged no-name into a defeated, desperate old man, Larry O'Keefe is nothing short of fantastic. O'Keefe makes this already difficult role even riskier by assuming the burden of a believable New York accent, yet he succeeds brilliantly in portraying both the change of age and the evolution of psyche that constitute Willy Loman.

David Javerbaum, as Willy's son Biff, starts out less strongly than does O'Keefe and never seems quite settled in his character's exchanges with his brother Happy (John Ducey). But Javerbaum is most convincing when it counts, and scenes between Willy and Biff convey all the stifling agony of their relationship. Javerbaum is also especially skillful in handling Biff's striking shift from a hopeful high school football hero to a disillusioned, directionless 34-year-old who feels cheated by his father's hypocritical expectations.

This play depends on the relationships between its characters; once again Hill and his cast meet the challenge of Miller's script and perform beautifully. A little thing like timing here takes on crucial importance, and family fights in this production are so well choreographed that they not only convince but wholly absorb the audience.

The differences in communication between characters are perhaps best represented by the role of Willy's wife Linda (Patricia Goldman). Goldman excellently portrays the confused wife whose final words at her husband's grave are "I don't understand," but she also gives an excellent performance as an angry mother whose sons have lost touch with their troubled father.

Hill's production of Miller's classic is so nearly perfect that even less central characters contribute their share to the play's convincing truthfulness. Ducey is sweetly sincere as Willy's neglected but aiming-to-please second son, Happy, who picks up Willy's fractured dream and vows to fulfill it after his father's death. Chip Rossetti puts out a convincing performance as Willy's boss Howard, but it is unfortunate that he has been forced to play three different parts throughout the drama. Two of these are pivotal characters in Willy's demise, and casting Rossetti in all three roles both detracts from his believability in any one and also creates some confusion for the viewer.

The only other unfortunate choice in this production is the addition of music, presumably to heighten the tension of the play. The problem is that the tension is already running excruciatingly high, and the synthesized music, often overamplified, is simply annoying. In more than one case music is used to signify an approaching flashback, and the actors seem to wait for it to end before continuing the action. Not surprisingly, this takes away some of the fluidity of the performance.