“Death of a Salesman” (1949) by Arthur Miller

What else can be said about a play that is so quintessential? It is a magnificent play that feels real, but that is largely, sometimes unreliable, memory. It flows in and out of the past with such an emotional charge that I felt like I was Willy Loman just reading it. And I felt I understood Willy through his mental decline. His death is a Greek-like destiny and because many members of my family have suffered from Alzheimer’s, I can not help but personally see my own destiny in a similar way. How many of us live on a path toward mental decline right before our ultimate demise? It’s Greek in its structure and in its palpable dread. Willy’s thinking that leads to his suicide is easy to understand through the play’s seamless structure. The play is not just a Greek tragedy, it’s the experience of reading about someone losing their grip on a modern reality. It becomes cosmic in its subtle recurring images like the flute, the jungle, the woman, etc. It’s about a deteriorating mind passing to the other side. It’s really amazing how spiritual this play feels when reading, while also talking about class and the “little guy.” All these big ideas beautifully layered, like bricks, into a classic American cornerstone-sized story. It feels that big, it is that good.

As an actor, sometimes I wonder what about me makes me an actor. Like if it were an aspect of my DNA that I could isolate, then would that would make it distinguishable from other non-actor, but still creative genetic makeup? I think this play works on me on that molecular level. Because the thing about acting is, for me, it’s at its best when it creates this expansive feeling in me. Just to sidetrack a little, this feeling that I get, from a story or a performance, I believe brings me closer into contact with my own soul. The most personal part of me. Which allows me to feel physically lighter, like I can breathe better, and in experiencing this I feel better able to connect to other people. Like taking a load off and the world gets brighter. It’s this incredibly personal and communal experience of art that reminds me of church, family, and the general feeling of, belonging. Actors can give me this feeling in a play or movie, and my favorites do in a lot of my favorite movies, but great writers can do it too. Arthur Miller’s writing here does just that. The descriptions feel biblical and all-knowing, like Miller’s perfected his ability to create fables, which he started doing from the first play of his (which I wrote about on this blog). A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry is the first play that I think gave me this feeling just from the script. Joe Turner’s Come and Gone by August Wilson. Shakespeare. But on this feeling, I sometimes wonder if I’m able to experience it solely because of my Actor Genes. In other words, Miller’s writing a dramatic form that has all the love, sentimentality, over-sincerity, catastrophe, existentialism, etc. that only an actor can appreciate. Only a silly dramatic thing like an actor could feel completely seen by this play. I only bring this up because Miller seems to be writing this play in a traditional form of writing that is true and simple. It’s basic, old-school, and foundational. Its sweet, Its dramatic. And this play, like any childhood or biblical story, leaves an indelible mark, even in the darkest of ways.

But maybe that’s just me. Eric Andre said in a Conan interview, “Aren’t actors just the craziest fucking people?” (Maybe a misquote…) And thats a legit notion that I’ve heard from others in my own life. I don’t know if actors are really understood in this country. Sex and Celebrity are obviously, but its not the same as Acting. Not unrelated, just not equal. I once told a friend that in order to understand her sister as an actor, she had to understand what life might be like for someone who survived by, or grew up, telling themselves stories all the time. Just constantly running different shows in their mind. And this was revelatory for my friend. Acting is almost its own pathology. And Miller is talking in this pathological way. I know that later in his life, his work will be criticized for its over-earnestness and over-sentimentality, which we see has been there since play 1. Later, Critics will feel this dramatic emotion damages Miller’s criticisms and themes. A teenager of the 30’s, his references were moralistic. Miller has said that the greatest writers have a “moral sensibility” and a frustration for “all thats wrong with the world.” I say all this to highlight my feeling, that Miller and I get each other. Arthur Miller understands actors and there’s no actor that can deny this play’s beauty. Sometimes movies don’t speak to this, sometimes obnoxious, approach to life. Miller has it in spades. The play radiates feeling with loads of dialogue filled with dramatic catharsis, where we get to hear family members say things that, if you have the actor gene, you’ve always wanted to say. There are specific phrases that I’ve only imagined coming out of my mouth and landing on a loved one right in front of me. Its beautiful. Again, it’s dramatic. But, maybe there are those for whom this way of emoting does not resonate? If only Miller was alive long enough to see a Branden Jacob’s-Jenkins play. I bet he would be able to feel the influence of theatre on this country again. But, maybe theatre was never mainstream, even in 1947, and that that was an illusion, an idea that even Miller said was possible. And yet, its the vast majority of people who deserve to experience both playwrights’ plays in a theatre.

The main character, Willy Loman, is like my Dad; and he’s like all these older guys who can’t retire, who work alongside teenagers. He’s me, if I’m lucky, and get to live that long. Willy keeps saying that being liked means getting respect. He feels this kind of respect goes beyond institutions of education or systems of business. Willy seems to believe that old fashioned charm can be a main tool for building a professional career, but Willy makes the idea sound so matter-of-fact, that his point of view quietly becomes an argument about fairness and equality. Willy seems to be saying that if you’re charming, then why shouldn’t that get you ahead, at least in selling things? However, Willy suffers from this perspective as a toxic obsession; his belief is that popularity supersedes the rules, education, and money that most other people seem to rely on. And this belief, that Willy is trapped by, reminds me of the ego that seems naturally occurring in actors. In everyone online. In everyone, like myself, trying to make it. Or trying to heal the world. Like Miller understands that someone has said to us all, as absolute truth, that we are all inherently unique and that the things we want will be for all of us. This play is challenging that assumption. Why are our egos so tied to what we can produce? What are we all chasing when none of it actual matters when we die? The ability to ask these questions gives the play a wisdom that is timeless.

I think I am always trying to breakdown, because I love behavior, what makes story telling a valuable art form. This is the kind of play where I feel closer to that understanding. In every story, I’m looking for realistic, specific human behavior and language, but even better is when that behavior surprises me. Expands my perspective on what that actually looks like. Behavior that can vary in shape, size or dimension. For some reason, I’m thinking of Parasite dir. by Bong Joon-Ho right now. So funny, so quirky and so so deep. Also Sinners dir. by Ryan Coogler. Hair-raising good. What I feel is in my blood, which is what I’m trying to ramble about, is that my habit of observing behavior as this one part of a deep emotional “iceberg,” (which I think floats mostly everyone) has become a skill that matches with the ability to perform. My personal understanding of acting is that it’s the art of being able to see people and show them what is seen. But like, seen with the third eye as well as the other two, you know? The surface level and the deeper level. And every other level. I think everyone understands this naturally, but what can be harder to describe is when a writer’s perspective injects itself so cleanly into a play, that its messages do the same thing. Sometimes its irony, or maybe its subtext. It’s layered messaging isn’t reliant on the actor to produce. The Greats, like Shakespeare, Chekhov, and Miller for example, do it with their stories, which makes their messaging human. We get the big ideas on the surface and what those ideas mean, for these poor characters, underneath it all. And what I mean by this is as well, is that actors are trained to believe that what the character is saying has never been said before, so that the experience of performing the character is as fresh and new as any actual experience a person might have being alive. So in this way, when characters speak and they fall into double meanings, ironies, and hidden subtexts, they are meaning multiple meanings at the same time. They, without knowing what happens next to them, experience the possibility of multiple outcomes to the things they say in trying to survive/enjoy/etc. their lives. When actors tap into this, it is exhilarating to watch. When writer’s tap into this, their ideas become universal.

In this play, Miller makes his criticism of American values so identifiable that his commentary becomes subliminally digested. In a weird way, he’s using the “fake-ness” of a theatrical experience to subvert a stereotypical understanding of a “hero’s journey.” The hero is a failure and dies one. But is he? The story is in the present tense, yes, but it’s also not. Memory can’t be trusted as fact, and Willy can’t distinguish past from present a lot of the time. Whose perspective can we really trust? Miller describes this as dramatic form, and claims he’s using it to explore deeper parts of his own self. Miller has also said that this structure of story dates back to the Greeks. For him, story telling is a way of reflecting society back to itself. So, Miller is hitting this multilayer experience of theatre with this play, where he is experimenting with form, able to express his frustrations with the “money” and its futility, while also commenting on how this “need for money” (uniquely American as it seemed to Miller then) damages one’s ability to appreciate their life in the end. The question then becomes: isn’t Life a more valuable thing, in and of itself, then all the failures/achievements that we evaluate Life to bring with it? There’s a lot of dialogue about right from wrong, about who’s valuable versus who’s not, but all of it is filtered through the experience of a dying, regretful older man and his family.

I think this is the reason why Miller’s incredible play is genius. By speaking from the perspective of The Great Depression, Miller is bringing a generation of Americans (and every subsequent generation) into closer contact with the self-aware idea of purpose. Particularly what purpose means for the people in the United States. A country of immigrants. But, looking for better opportunity shouldn’t chain us up with notions of money above all else. About how we measure ourselves according to how much we have. This is the play’s most powerful theme, and Miller creates it with the most innate form of story that we have, while also pushing theatrical boundaries in this context. There’s a lot of emotion that this play brings up for me. I mean because without “opportunity,” we have to ask what’s left? Who are we and what do we fight, when we fight, about? What the hell is freedom? Freedom for the purposes of what? And how many more years of misery (psychological or physical) will we have to endure, before we can peacefully reach Old-World maturity as a Country?

Watching some interviews, I was happy to hear Miller talk about his life. To see that through theatre we are compatriots and fellow artists. Miller’s personal struggle through the Depression, for which he loosely based this play on, showed him that this country can survive unprecedented corruption and unimaginable economic failure. This is him speaking in the 80’s. Its possible that I’ve been so indoctrinated that I fail to understand the full scope of Capitalism’s cruelty, which may or may not ever end; but for now, before anything dire happens, I take solace in these 30-year-old Miller interviews. Where we can still find him being funny, smart, highly aware, and real. I especially loved to hear him reminisce over his initial outrage over the $8 surge in price for a Broadway ticket, in the 50’s. And how he goes on to suggest that that price bump, must have been the initial first step towards the decline of what was known, to Miller as the American Theatre, respected then for both its artistry that serviced its people, and for its people, who were loyal enough to participate and listen.

P.S. There’s a bit about how Karl Malden (A Streetcar Named Desire) fainted, from how hard they were rehearsing All My Sons, that I love. In another interview, Miller says that this play will always be Lee J. Cobb’s, (On the Waterfront) and that actors don’t have the technique to fully execute what Cobb could as Willy Loman. Gives me chills just thinking about it. You could tell from Waterfront that he was a force to reckon with as an actor.

Rolling Ferro

Some Good Quotes

Willy: …Who ever heard of a Hastings refrigerator? Once in my life I would like to own something outright before it’s broken! I’m always in a race with the junkyard! I just finished paying for the car and it’s on its last legs. The refrigerator consumes belts like a goddamn maniac. They time those things. They time them so when you finally paid for them, they’re used up.

Linda: …Well, you wait there then. And make a nice impression on him, darling. Just don’t perspire too much before you see him. And have a nice time with Dad…And be sweet to him tonight, dear. Be loving to him. Because he’s only a little boat looking for a harbor.

Biff: People ask where I am and what I’m doing, you don’t know, and you don’t care. That way it’ll be off your mind and you can start brightening up again. All right? That clears it, doesn’t it? You gonna wish me luck, scout? What do you say?