“Death of a Salesman”

By Bridgette M. Redman

Artistic directors around the country are debating what sort of theater is important for this time. For some, they say they must do the familiar chestnuts that will bring people back to the theater. Others say it is the time for risk-taking, for revolution. Others say it is a time to amplify voices that haven’t been heard enough.

At Flint Repertory Theatre in Michigan, Artistic Director Michael Lluberes is doing all those things in their 2022-2023 season, starting with the long-delayed opener of Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman.” Lluberes does what he calls “innovative interpretations” of classics, something he succeeds with in this production.

While the masterpiece has been around since 1949, Lluberes makes a compelling argument that the critique of the American dream inherent in this tragedy is still as relevant as ever. He emphasizes the themes of mental degeneration and emotional intelligence in ways that spark new questions and explorations.

All photos courtesy of Mike Naddeo and Flint Repertory Theatre.

As always, his casting is superlative. He brings in talent from New York, while casting some of the best of Michigan’s artists. Nor, in this 11-person show, does he neglect opening the door for newcomers and emerging artists.

Tony-nominated actor Lewis J. Stadlen creates a heartbreaking Willy Loman, one filled with flaws and completely unable to accept life as it is, only as he wants it to be. He opens with a vulnerability that sets the stage for the emotional journey he’ll take over the next two and a half hours. Stadlen’s Loman lives with contradictions in part because he is unaware of them, even when he switches gears on a dime, putting lie to everything he’d just been asserting.

When Linda, whose long-suffering is apparent in every moment on stage, insists that attention must be paid, the audience is led to agree because no one can ignore Stadlen’s Loman. Yes, people in the play might push Willy off because he annoys them, but Stadlen has shown the inner turmoil and the clear motivations behind every choice.

Lluberes ensures that Stadlen’s work shines by the way he directs everyone else to interact him, each other character adding a layer of subtlety to Loman’s fight and loss.

Carolyn Gillespie brings an unbroken commitment to Linda, a woman who loves her husband unfailingly and with a tender devotion that forces the audience to look at Willy through her eyes.

David Wohl’s Charley provides a similar, sympathetic perspective to the failed salesman. While some productions play the neighbor and successful businessman as being angry and frustrated with Willy, Wohl shows that Charley actually has a deep understanding of who Willy is and why he acts the way he does. He and his son Bernard, played by Scott Anthony Joy, provide the contrast to Willy and his sons, the ones the Lomans hold in contempt, but have not the failings of the Loman family.

But it is the interactions between Loman and his sons that are at the crux of this play. Kevin O’Callghan’s Happy, the son mostly ignored by his father, continues his father’s mistakes, unable even to see them as failings. He seeks constant approval from unattainable women and is as quick with a lie as his father is. Like Stadlen, O’Callaghan first beckons us in with sympathy only to later reveal his smarmy side.

Michael Lopetrone’s Biff is as heartbreaking as Stadler’s Loman. Lopetrone and Stadler make it seem as though Miller wrote these parts for them, so completely do they inhabit the roles. In Lopetrone, we see the disillusioned son of a father, a young man who still carries his father’s expectations no matter how much he seeks out the truth of his life.

The conflict between father and son is electric and each encounter reveals a new aspect. Even when the two reject each other, there is a bond that neither can break. They are so inextricably linked that their fates cannot be severed. They make it achingly clear that charisma cannot rescue them—if it could, the play would end in joy and not in tragedy, for their personalities are larger than life—and that they have nothing else upon which to fall back.

Another brilliant casting choice of Lluberes was in putting Rico Bruce Wade in the role of Uncle Ben. Costume Designer Brandon R. McWilliams clad him in an expensive-looking white suit, hat and cane and Lighting Designer Chelsie McPhilimy bathed him in a riveting spot. And then Wade took over, providing the haunting contrast between brothers. He had cool power and control. Every word exuded strength, intelligence and an almost god-like confidence.

His presence was chilling and only Linda was able to see him as the danger he was.

The economics of today’s theater world mean that plays don’t often have characters that make short appearances never to return—or what was once called “bit parts.” It asks a lot of an actor to block out a period of work for just a few minutes a night. Yet, that is common in classic plays and “Death of a Salesman” is no exception.

The actors in these roles challenged the idea that they were “bit actors,” for their roles were crucial in helping to expose who the Lomans were. Whether it was Sarab Kamoo’s drunken “The Woman” who saw nothing serious in Willy or Craig Ester’s Howard, Willy’s boss who saw him as an embarrassing failure, each of the actors bought into the overall vision and helped make it succeed. Laura Nguyen and Marie Muhammad tore the last veneer away from Happy, showing him as a husk of a person doomed to repeat his father’s failings.

Shane Cinal returns as scenic designer, the artist behind so many stunning sets at Flint Rep. This time he builds an almost-ramshackle home that stands in as metaphor for Willy’s life. Miranda Sue Hartmann acted as both properties designer and scenic dresser and placed the scene in the late 1940s in a manner convincing but never distracting.

“Death of a Salesman” belongs to the canon of American theater both because of its critique of capitalism and because of its unerring look into the heart and soul of the individual. It calls into question issues of integrity and popularity. It shows us a man who believed that only his poll numbers mattered, facts were irrelevant. But rather than turn that into political polemic, Miller—and now Lluberes and his cast and crew—take an intimate journey into that man’s mind and inevitable downfall.