Death of a Salesman

death of a salesman arthur miller artist note: Nancy Palk I can’t tell you how happy we are to remount this great play. We performed it close to two years ago, and now have another chance to dig deeper into the characters, with the calm and confidence of our first production behind us.

It moves me deeply to see the new cast members leap off the cliff with nothing but hard work and chutzpah, knowing how much this play means to us all. We had a run of act one, all lines learned, on the THIRD DAY OF our REHEARSAL FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! And let’s talk about performing both The Crucible and Death of a Salesman at the same time!

Who gets to do that? I’m trying to refrain from using capital letters all the time… but really…

LUCKY LUCKY US and LUCKY LUCKY YOU. To be drawn into this amazing playwright’s brain, in two such completely different worlds... hard to believe it’s the same guy. What an opportunity for us all. I honestly believe it would take a stony stony heart not to be moved by this play. Willy and his family with all their faults, certainly turn my heart to mush whenever I watch rehearsal.

Enjoy!

Nancy Palk, Linda in Death of a Salesman

a message from the artistic director It is always a treat to return to a production of a great play with new eyes and a few fresh horses. You see and hear things that you missed the first time and the production is ALWAYS deeper, richer and more confident the second time around. Each time we do it we marvel at how quickly it comes back and how quickly new members of the ensemble are absorbed.

Most notably in this case we marvel at our friend Mike Ross who fit immediately, uniquely and touchingly into the shoes of Happy Loman, Willy’s youngest son.

This kind of synthesis happens as a result of a bigger design: the creation over the last 15 years of a repertory ensemble, Soulpepper’s Artistic Family. Mike fits in so quickly because a) he is extremely gifted and diligent and b) he has been raised (as an actor) in this house and by these people. This creates the kind of shorthand for actors that you have with members of your family… you don’t need to set up the joke each time... you don’t need to explain the backstory...

Nancy is right, we are LUCKY to be with these monumental plays. I like to think too that these plays are pleased to be around this company. Here they are given the care and love that they deserve. The production that you are about to witness was given eight weeks of dedicated rehearsal the first time we did it (most theatres give three weeks). It then matured over its initial run, has been simmering on the back-burner for the last two years, and has just been given another three weeks of “cooking” before it is presented to you.

This is the sort of attention that must be paid a great work. Now it is for you.

Albert Schultz, Artistic Director

photo: cylla von tiedemann

death of a salesman arthur miller ari cohen & Joseph ziegler.

u.s.a. 1949

production

cast

Albert Schultz director

Ins Choi Howard

Lorenzo Savoini Set designer

Ari Cohen Biff

Ken MacKenzie costume designer

Raquel Duffy Woman

Bonnie Beecher LIGHTING designer

Michael Hanrahan Charley

Mike Ross SOUND designer

Sarah Koehn miss Forsythe

Nancy Dryden stage manager

Courtney Ch'ng Lancaster Letta / Jenny

Ashlyn Ireland assistant stage manager

Nancy Palk Linda

Kat Chin Rehearsal assistant stage manager

Gregory Prest Bernard

Diane Pitblado dialect coach Todd Campbell fight director Kelly McEvenue alexander coach

Mike Ross Happy William Webster uncle ben Daniel Williston Stanley Joseph Ziegler Willy

production sponsor

Death of a Salesman is presented by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Inc. New York.

There will be one 20 - minute intermission. Approximate running time 2 hours and 55 minutes.

background notes “A small man can be as exhausted as a great man” – Arthur Miller Two summers ago, Joseph Ziegler and his wife Nancy Palk first inhabited Willy and Linda Loman. When I asked Joe then if he could sum up his role, he replied with a grin, “It’s bottomless.” How lucky for these two remarkable actors, and for us, that they have another chance to explore these iconic characters. It’s a rare gift to repeat any role and the fact that most of the original cast members are returning gives us the opportunity to savour Arthur Miller’s timeless play – and Albert Schultz’s tender, heartfelt production – all over again.

Salesman was written – so the biographies say – in six blazing weeks. It had its origins in a short story Miller wrote at seventeen. A note on the manuscript reveals that the salesman on whom the main character is based threw himself under a subway train. This provided the initial spark but by the time he sat down to write the play, Miller was calling on a great deal more than a single incident. His own memories poured into the play, as well as his passionate feelings about the promises and deceptions of American life. The Loman household is, by Miller’s own admission, animated by the same spirit he recalled at the home of his Uncle Manny Newman, also a salesman. Manny’s personality, his bullying drive, possessed Miller’s imagination. Newman, he says, was “a competitor at all times, in all things and at every moment. My brother and I he saw running neck and neck with his two sons in some race that never stopped in his mind.”

When Miller’s first great success, All My Sons, was playing on Broadway, his Uncle Manny came to see it. After the show, he answered a question Miller hadn’t asked. “Buddy’s doing very well,” he said, referring to his cherished son, presumably so Miller wouldn’t think he’d pulled ahead in the competition to be the greatest. Willy Loman, like Manny Newman, is not a great man but he is obsessed with greatness, with leaving a shining legacy for his two sons. Greatness, Willy believes, is being liked and admired. It’s not about how hard you work or the content of your character, but what other people think of you. “Be liked,” Willy says, “and you will never want.”

When he first worked on the role, Joseph Ziegler spoke about the salesman’s need to stay optimistic and how Miller charts the warping of that enthusiasm. Charley says in the play, “A salesman’s got to dream.” The gap between the greatness of Willy’s dreams and the bleakness of his everyday life drives him farther and farther into delusion, eventually pushing him to gamble everything on one great (in his mind) gesture. In a home trembling “with resolutions and shouts of victories that had not yet taken place but surely would tomorrow,” it is Willy’s wife Linda who “bears the cross of reality...” It is she who pays attention, she who shines her love on her husband, appreciating him, cherishing him, defending him even against his own sons.

Arthur Miller’s landmark play has enthralled audiences from New York to Beijing.

What a privilege to surrender again to this great and heartbreaking work of art.

Biography The second of three children, Arthur Asher Miller was born on October 17, 1915 in Harlem, New York, to Isadore and Augusta Miller. It was after reading Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov that Miller decided to become a writer, graduating with a degree in English from the University of Michigan. Miller’s career spanned seven decades, producing a massive catalogue of drama, fiction and non-fiction, screenplays and radio programs. Some of his notable plays include All My Sons (1947), The Crucible (1953) and The Price (1968). His work garnered him accolades and awards including The Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Spain’s Asturias Prize. Miller died on February 10, 2005 on the 56th anniversary of Death of a Salesman’s premiere.

Background Notes by Associate Artist Paula Wing.

soulpepper production Jacqueline Robertson-Cull

Geoff Hughes

Janet Pym

Mike Keays

cutter

dresser

carpenter

Barbara Nowakowski

Greg Chambers

Christina Hantos

Paul Boddum

1st hand

props builder

head scenic artist

scenic artist

head of hair & makeup

Soulpepper Theatre Company is an active member of the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres (pact), the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts (tapa) and Theatre Ontario, and engages, under the terms of the Canadian Theatre Agreement, professional artists who are members of Canadian Actors’ Equity Association. Scenic Artists and Set Decorators employed by Soulpepper Theatre Company are represented by Local 828 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees.

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