{"id":1795,"date":"2019-05-12T21:33:23","date_gmt":"2019-05-12T20:33:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/?p=1795"},"modified":"2019-05-12T21:33:33","modified_gmt":"2019-05-12T20:33:33","slug":"propwatch-the-suitcases-in-death-of-a-salesman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/2019\/05\/propwatch-the-suitcases-in-death-of-a-salesman.html","title":{"rendered":"Propwatch: the suitcases in Death of a Salesman"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What does Willy Loman sell? It\u2019s one of the great unanswered\nmysteries of American theatre. 38 years the man trudges around New England,\nhawking the Wagner Company\u2019s whatevers to stores without number, but what does\nhe have in his valises? Who knows \u2013 it\u2019s the sale, not the sold, that counts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whatever they contain, the cases are real enough. We see them early on in the heavy-hearted revival of Arthur Miller\u2019s Death of a Salesman<\/a> <\/em>at London\u2019s Young Vic. Willy lumbers in with two cases. One, a smart, wooden box, presumably packed with sample goods. The other, a battered and scratched suitcase, must carry his personal stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company case is clean, characterless. It\u2019s pro kit, an\nemblem of trust. A man with that case is man to take seriously. But it might also\nlodge an early splinter of concern in our minds, given that the action of the\nplay is in effect Willy climbing into a coffin and pulling the lid shut behind\nhim. It\u2019s a claustrophobic character arc \u2013 shut out, boxed in, sealed off from\nthe life he planned to live.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for Willy\u2019s own case \u2013 oh, that has seen things. The glory\ndays on the road, the back-slapping, hand-shaking \u2013 \u201cHere\u2019s Willy!\u201d \u201cHow you\ndoing, sport?\u201d \u201cStep right in, Mr Loman\u201d \u2013 everywhere from Boston to Providence.\nThe order book fat, the smiles wide. And then, slowly, the pages more often\nblank, the grins fixed or mocking. The job downgraded, the suitcase bearing the\nscars of being hauled out of the Studebaker, its shine long gone. If the smart box\nof samples is Willy\u2019s ambition, the suitcase is his weathered, weary soul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arthur Miller\u2019s always said that Willy was selling himself<\/em> <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

When Brian Dennehy played Willy on Broadway in 1999, he was \u2018carrying what seem to be the world’s heaviest valises.\u2019 Richard Sandomir<\/a> worried about their contents in the New York Times<\/em>. According to one scholar he consulted, \u2018whatever he [Loman] sold, it\u2019s heavy.\u2019 Other interviewees considered the stores named in the text and proposed hosiery or other womenswear. If so, it would be a nice little irony \u2013 Willy, despite his infidelity, isn\u2019t interested in women. He\u2019s a man\u2019s man who wants to flourish in a man\u2019s world and blaze a trail for his sons to follow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miller\u2019s own response was that Willy was selling himself<\/em>. His confidence, his certainty,\nhis self-belief. Watching Wendell Pierce at the Young Vic, you can imagine how that\nwould have worked. His is a face that draws you in \u2013 large eyes, a smile that\u2019s\na relief to see. Like his family, you might be eager to please him, eager to\nsee him pleased.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Willy Loman doesn\u2019t realise it, but he\u2019s a family\nbusiness. He\u2019d never function without wife Linda \u2013 a rocklike performance by Sharon\nD Clarke, graven with anxiety and anger. And he\u2019d have nothing to dream for if\nit wasn\u2019t for his boys (Arinz\u00e9 Kene, superb, and Martins Imhangbe, heartsick\nwhen his father looks away) \u2013 the pair of them hobbled by Willy\u2019s hopes, born to\ndisappoint him, and themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miller\u2019s fretful memory play is directed by Marianne\nElliott with Miranda Cromwell, and occupies an unsettled design by Anna\nFleischle. Door and window frames are sketched in: hovering in the air, falling\ninto place, receding as characters approach. Willy\u2019s home, the locus of his\nambitions, its mortgage all but paid, is as illusory as everything else he puts\nhis faith in. The Lomans look physically imposing \u2013 the parents with heft, their\nsons with serious muscle \u2013 especially in these tight spaces. They look\nconfined, especially when their dialogue paces restlessly around long-repeated\nconversations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve always read the Lomans as an implicitly Jewish American family, but Elliott \u2013 rethinking her third American classic in a row after Angels in America<\/em> and Company<\/a><\/em> \u2013 casts them as African American. It\u2019s an acknowledgement of how the dice are loaded; the American dream is not just Willy\u2019s personal delusion, it\u2019s an ideological untruth. When Willy pleads with his boss for a job away from the road, he\u2019s repeatedly addressed as \u2018kid\u2019. The crudity of an older man patronised by a younger is magnified when that entitled youngster is white and bridles when a black man moves to put a hand on his shoulder. When Pierce\u2019s Loman begins to describe the slights he routinely receives, Clarke raises a warning hand \u2013 she doesn\u2019t want to hear what they both know too well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whatever the suitcases contain, they represent a heavy\nload. Willy\u2019s mistakes, his refusal to see things as they are, to let his\nfamily breathe \u2013 they aren\u2019t the only baggage he has to schlep around until he gives\nway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo of Wendell Pierce by Brinkhoff Mogenburg<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Follow David on Twitter: @mrdavidjays<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What does Willy Loman sell? It\u2019s one of the great unanswered mysteries of American theatre. 38 years the man trudges around New England, hawking the Wagner Company\u2019s whatevers to stores without number, but what does he have in his valises? Who knows \u2013 it\u2019s the sale, not the sold, that counts. Whatever they contain, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1796,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[552,633,569,322,321,34,128],"class_list":{"0":"post-1795","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-anna-fleischle","9":"tag-arthur-miller","10":"tag-marianne-elliott","11":"tag-props","12":"tag-propwatch","13":"tag-theatre","14":"tag-young-vic","15":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1795"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1797,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1795\/revisions\/1797"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}