Review: Death of a Salesman at Her Majesty’s Theatre

Review by Greg Gorton

Neil Armfield’s production of Death of a Salesman is a beautiful piece of personal tragedy with incredible performances and unique staging. While it sometimes misses crucial opportunities, it will be remembered for creating a bold new approach to the time-bending masterpiece of American literature.

Eschewing Miller’s pedantically detailed preferences for set design, Armfield’s production involves the large bleachers of Ebbets Field front stage to the audience, with a small remaining stage on which to perform the majority of the play. While this often works to the benefit of the show, especially during scenes that were written and played in multiple locations, the directorial decision to then have “laterally connected” characters sit on the benches as spectators was of little effect. Miller was equally pedantic about the need for thematic music cues, and composer Alan John should be praised for such masterful compositions; the discordant “Ben’s Theme” will sit with me for some time. The lighting, too, is masterful in this production, highlighting the madness and the memories that this play explores in physically compelling ways. Niklas Pajanti’s work with shadows is especially impressive, striking moments between dream and reality like a knife.

For many audiences, the big draw of this particular production is to see someone as accomplished as Anthony LaPaglia take on the complex and tragic role of Willie Loman. He is, as expected, a master in this role. Loman is a man of depths - delusions of grandeur compete with pride and shame, while a very real dementia is taking over these long-held feelings. LaPaglia’s performance is deeply empathetic to the fragile man, allowing us to both hate his actions and want to save him from the hell he has, at least partly, created for himself.

This being true, the bigger performance of the night for me was that of Josh Helman as Biff Loman. In many ways, Miller’s script is as much about Biff as it is Willie, but so many productions do not spend the necessary time or effort on creating a son who has really dwelt on the man he has become. Helman’s performance is, in a word, brilliant. Biff is a man, long past being a boy, who faces the very same struggles as his father, and this is something we can see on stage in the mannerisms and postures taken. Helman (as well as Ben O’Toole as Happy) also moves seamlessly between child and adult such that one could only mistake the other as a relative - or better, an evolution.

The additional cast for this play is also very strong, with standout performances by Marco Chiappi as Charley and Aisha Aidara as Jenny.

​Despite quite strong performances from the other actors, and perhaps coming from creative decisions that did not quite reach me, I do feel this production offered far too little to the women of this play. Miller’s women are such full and interesting characters, often powerful, and full of depth even when given a few lines. Characters like Miss Forsythe and Letta were treated as cut-outs, and “The Woman” was treated with such manic fashion that I walked away unsure who she was meant to be or what her feelings about the transactions were.

Of course, the most painful aspect of this experience was to see, for the second time this year, Alison Whyte’s performance not hit the way I wanted it to. As Linda Loman, Whyte is on a constant knife-edge, almost-but-never panicky, and too tired to show tenderness in more than words and chores. While fully accepting this interpretation, I found the audience around me still laughing at Linda, including the many times she is verbally abused and threatened by her husband. Strangely, this same phenomenon occurred during Whyte’s performance of The Glass Menagerie. Is it an inability for audiences to forget her prowess as a comedian? Or is there some sort of positive aura that Whyte cannot stop emanating from her? Or, more simply, is it a coincidence of two directors of two American masterpieces, not knowing how to treat their housewives?

​Death of a Salesman is a beautiful production filled with incredibly tragic “heros”, performed by actors of the highest calibre. The unusual choices in set design will set it apart from others you have seen, but be prepared to feel a little left out if you hope for deeper explorations of tragedy outside of the main two characters.

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