Death of a Salesman (Broadway) (2022)

I made it through high school without having read Arthur Miller's classic American Dream tragedy. I've never known another Willy Loman. And much like Marianne Elliott's revival of Company, she (along with Miranda Cromwell) reimagined the play in a new light so inspired and convincing it's hard to believe it wasn't the original. This Loman family is black and it works so well I can't even imagine Philip Seymour Hoffman and Andrew Garfield. The American dream exists for white people; it's much more difficult for African Americans. It also sort of raises the question of what the American Dream is. Is it home ownership? I always thought it was owning your own business. Maybe it's just raising kids who do better than the previous generation. I suppose it's up for interpretation.

The set is very Marianne Elliott. The furniture descends from the ceiling on wires. The rooms move back and forth, without walls. For some reason, the set is crooked, not aligned to the edge of the stage but on a bit of an angle. It makes the theater feel a little off. I love the music, folksy depressing music, strummed on a guitar (kind of like Girl From the North Country?). It's obviously not a musical, but how could you not give Andre DeShields and Sharon Clarke a song, right? They're excellent. Clarke is a shoo in for the Tonys, but I did say the same about Caroline, or Change. 

I did doze off a little bit in the first act during one of Willy's hallucinations/memories. It's a very long show, over 3 hours. It's very powerful, very emotional, devastating really. It's certainly not for the Lion King crowd, but tourists that recognize the title will find an exquisite production. The theater wasn't full unfortunately or unfortunately, we had no one in front of us.