DEATH OF A SALESMAN. To 17 March.
Ipswich
DEATH OF A SALESMAN
by Arthur Miller
New Wolsey Theatre 13-17 March 2007
Tue-Sat 7.45pm Mat Wed & Sat 2.30pm
Audio-described 14 March 7.45pm
Post-show talk 15 March
Runs 2hr 35min One interval
TICKETS: 01473 295900
www.wolseytheatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 6 March at Mercury Theatre Colchester
High-ranking Loman show.
Sue Lefton’s production (originating at Colchester’s Mercury Theatre) is by someway the most exciting Salesman seen in years, though it starts conventionally, Roger Delves-Broughton’s Willy Loman plodding over the stage, borne down by his drummer’s kit of suitcases, and proceeding with speech and gesture modes familiar from fifties Hollywood.
Sara Perks‘ set is a blank-faced assemblage, with some awkward doubling of spaces: the Loman boys’ bedroom as an office, Willy’s employer in0 a room that later becomes a kind of restaurant-extension. This set’s blankness becomes an ever-more apt expression of the characters’ lives.
What jump-starts the show is the arrival of Willy’s sons. Happy and Biff are first seen in the ‘present-day’ as 30-somethings, their dad 63. As they burst on, it takes a moment to realise: Biff is bald. This is no overgrown lad still finding his way, but someone creeping towards middle-age and unable to settle into life. It reflects on his brother; father’s been an American Dreamer, and his inheritance is their disillusion.
Delves-Broughton develops a remarkable performance, caught between surges of naïve optimism and times his face becomes a deathly-grey mask of despair. In happy days he and wife Linda are likely to break into a dance, still living – or re-living – the illusions of youth.
Seeing Kate Layden’s Linda with make-up, happily sitting on a table, swinging her legs, is to realise the character is more than an anxious oracle uttering the pompously passive-voiced “attention must be paid”. Without undue emphasis, that side is evident. But this was once a young, happy woman too.
Rarely has Biff’s disillusion so transparently linked to his continuing confusion, or Happy’s attempt to make his father realise the truth about his son had such a clear stream of desperation.
Around this nuclear-exploding family is a gallery of fine performances, including David Tarkenter’s casually callous Howard, Nicholas Lumley’s uncle who found a dream outside New England America, and the women who waft through Willy’s working life.
Once again, Lefton brings visual verse and fluency to a major script, neither manipulating nor overlaying, but exposing its truth with fresh vitality.
Willy Loman: Roger Delves-Broughton
Linda Loman: Kate Layden
Biff Loman: Marshall Griffin
Happy Loman: Gus Gallagher
Bernard: Stephen Cavanagh
The Woman: Shuna Snow
Charley: Paul McCleary
Uncle Ben: Nicholas Lumley
Howard Wagner/Stanley: David Tarkenter
Jenny/Letta: Charlie Morgan
Miss Forsythe: Clare Humphrey
Director: Sue Lefton
Designer: Sara Perks
Lighting: Tony Simpson
Sound: Marcus Christensen
Composer: Jules Evans
Dialect coach: Charmian Hoare
2007-03-13 08:09:27