There was never any doubt the death of Arthur Miller was sure to resurrect the ghost of Willy Loman on stages throughout the world. The scary thing is the realization that Willy never really left us.
In this aging, spent salesman, Miller created a stunningly original personification of the failed American Dream in 1949. But what started out as a singular presence has morphed into a kind of numbingly omnipresent Everyman – the embodiment of the failure of too many ordinary, middle-class Americans. “Death” spawned dozens of copycats, most obviously in David Mamet’s “Glengarry Glen Ross.”
The Denver Repertory Theatre’s rich new production, in collaboration with the Lafayette Community Players, is always solid and occasionally spectacular, though not for the reasons you might expect. Timothy Englert and Ellen Ranson are competent enough as Willy and his ferociously loyal wife, Linda. But this staging will be remembered most for the unnervingly natural portrayal of self-destructive son Biff by David C. Riley, a human powderkeg of an actor.
Riley’s honest performance keeps things intentionally intimate, almost whisperlike, so that Biff’s eventual explosions of rage run through you like a jolt, culminating in his brutal exhortation that his father “take that phony dream and burn it.”
In 1949, the tragedy of this play lay in what New York Times critic Brooks Atkinson called Willy’s “fatal misconception about his place in the scheme of things.” Today what resonates most is Willy’s fatal misconception of his place in his family. What is to become of any man who realizes that he is worth more to them dead than alive? Willy is seduced into one final lie – the romanticism of death.
In infallible hands, “Death” might have a dozen money moments. Director Madge Montgomery’s staging is mostly workmanlike until a final 10 minutes that are as powerful as any company might be expected to deliver. The surge begins in a restaurant when Biff begs of his father, “Let’s hold onto the facts tonight!” builds though a flashback in which Biff, then a high-school senior, tracks Willy to a motel and finds another woman (“You fake! You phony little fake!”), and culminates with Willy threatening Biff, “If you leave this house, may you rot in hell.”
Englert and Ranson have worked together frequently and often magnificently; they might as well be Denver’s Lunt and Fontanne. But while their familiarity often allows them to plumb depths few other acting teams can reach, there are still truths in these roles they still need to excavate. Their performances too often strike only one note: Englert in a state of fixed petulance, Ranson in her girlish naiveté.
You get from Englert the part of Willy that’s pure salesman: a glad-handing symbol of 1940s self-made capitalist expansionism. You don’t get so much the swinging pendulum of confidence and despair. You don’t feel the cumulative effect of a man living for years on the vagaries of weekly commissions, or the toll of the quiet loneliness on the road. Not that one should expect the second coming of Lee J. Cobb, but there’s never that dull, aching resignation of a defeated man.
Ranson communicates Linda’s indomitable spirit, but her sunny approach never gives away the sense that her optimism is a lie fueled by fear, one just as delusional as Willy’s.
Riley shares a remarkable rapport with the riveting Phil Newsom as Biff’s callous younger brother Happy, an equally doomed dreamer whose only gauges for success seem to be how much money he can make and how many women he can conquer.
“Death” is not always completely focused. A transitional live guitar is so lovely as to be completely incongruous, and secondary characters lack impact because they lack vital confidence (an exception is Kenny Storms as the son of Willy’s former boss).
Despite its shortcomings, this is an honest and able effort, by far the most realized Denver Rep production to date. When you leave, you can’t help but hold Willy’s life up to your own as a kind of litmus test. We all have greater dreams and unfulfilled aspirations that haunt and fuel us simultaneously. Fortunately, even at three-plus hours, you never feel as though you’ve wasted a second of your life here.
Theater critic John Moore can be reached at 303-820-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com.
“Death of a Salesman”
DRAMA|Denver Repertory Theatre|Written by Arthur Miller|Directed by Madge Montgomery|Starring Timothy Englert, Ellen Ranson, David C. Riley and Phil Newsom|John Hand Theatre, 7653 E. 1st Place|THROUGH AUG. 28|7:30 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays; 6 p.m. Sundays|3 hours, 20 minutes|$9-$18|720-839-4913
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CURIOUS NEW VOICES Curious Theatre Company presents staged readings from its second annual New Voices project at 7 p.m. today through Sunday at 1080 Acoma St. Each night local actors will read four or five short plays written by writers ages 15-21 during a three-week workshop. Free (303-623-2349).
“THE COLORADO CATECHISM” A couple who meet at a Colorado rehab facility share the struggles of addiction, change each other’s lives and then discover that sometimes, we must give up what we love most to survive. Showtimes vary through Aug. 11 at Theatre Aspen, 400 Rio Grande Place, Aspen. $30-$35 (970-925-9313).
“UNCLE JED’S BARBERSHOP” This musical, created by Denver’s Kenneth Grimes and based on the children’s book by Margaree King-Mitchell, is being performed at the Aurora Fox in advance of its run in the 2005 New York Musical Theater Festival next month. “Jed” follows a 7-year-old girl and the only black barber in a Southern county in 1928, a time “when black folks weren’t supposed to have dreams like that.” Showtimes 7 p.m. today through Sunday at 9900 E. Colfax Ave. Tickets $20 (303-321-7436).
-John Moore
