Following a critically acclaimed run in London, this vibrant and timely production of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman comes to Broadway for 17 weeks only. Olivier Award nominee Wendell Pierce and Olivier Award winner and 2022 Tony nominee Sharon D Clarke reprise their roles as Willy and Linda Loman in a revival told – for the first time on Broadway – from the perspective of an African American family.
A new cast of supporting actors joins the production in New York, featuring Khris Davis and Tony winner André De Shields. Directed by Miranda Cromwell – who won an Olivier Award alongside co-director Marianne Elliott for the West End and Young Vic productions – this powerful interpretation of Miller's classic drama illuminates the dark underbelly of the American Dream and its elusive promise of equality and opportunity for all. Don’t miss the brilliantly reimagined revival The New York Times called "vital and electrifying."
Miranda Cromwell's revival, based on one she directed in London with Marianne Elliott in 2019, does more than give us Black Lomans - including Khris Davis as Biff and McKinley Belcher III as Happy. It also, crucially, puts them in a largely white world. Willy's employer (Blake DeLong), his neighbor (Delaney Williams) and his mistress (Lynn Hawley) are thus more than foils in the usual sense; like Willy, you can never untangle the personal, economic and now racial threads of their behavior. And even if they aren't bigots, they electrify moments - a card game with the neighbor, a negotiation with the 'boss' - in which Willy's paranoia seems at the same time both fantastical and well founded.
Everything in the production seems pitched over the top, including Willy's declining mental condition, which here feels more like full-blown dementia than merely a man defeated by life who is losing his grip. The flashback scene in which Willy is discovered by Biff (Khris Davis) to be in a hotel room with another woman (Lynn Hawley) is bizarrely played for laughs, with the woman loudly cackling in demented fashion. Throughout the evening, the actors frequently shout their lines, as if not trusting us to appreciate the dialogue.
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