Bay Street Theater Brings "Death of a Salesman" to Life

For better or worse,‘tis the season, when grown children return home for the holidays. LITERATURE LIVE! and Bay Street Theater’s resurrection of Arthur Miller’s 20th century masterpiece, “Death of a Salesman,” seems divinely timed, as we usher in the 2017 holiday season.

Arthur Miller’s social drama, morality tale if you will, shines a mirror on the volatile unit, we call family, where every issue is a loaded one and where the kitchen can serve as a battleground. More often than any of us would like to admit, home is a place where family members might still love one another, but sadly, over the course of time, they may well have fallen out of liking each other. Time, illusions, disillusionment, judgment, and great expectations all play a part in the continuing saga known as the American dysfunctional family. Miller astutely places all of the action in his play in a 24 hour period, reminding us just how long a day in the life can seem, when we’re in the company of our loved ones.

LITERATURE LIVE! brings classics to life for young audiences and strives to be a meaningful resource for schools and teachers across Long Island. I’m sure the students seeing this well-crafted production, will relate, as I did when I first encountered this play as a teenager, to the Loman’s grown children, Biff and Happy. As the play effortlessly weaves back and forth between the past and the present, the audience comes to understand all the mixed feelings that the Loman brothers have for their parents. Ironically enough, as I watched Saturday’s opening night of this production, I found myself relating less to the grown children and more to the parent’s frustrations. I could easily empathize with the emotional, physical, spiritual, and psychological bankruptcy that their aging parents were experiencing after a lifetime of hard work and worries that seems to have yielded nothing but debts and despair. Needless to say, this play works well for people of all ages, and it becomes a very personal experience for everyone who sees it.

LITERATURE LIVES! decision to scale down the script -- from a two-act play, with a close to two hours and forty-five minute running time, to a more palatable one hour and forty-five minute one-act – was probably a wise one considering the young audiences that they are catering to. As for me, a playwright and a purist, I missed the deeper nuances that Miller’s uncut Pulitzer Prize/Tony-award winning play conveyed, and particularly disturbing to me were the few missing references to WW II, since the play took place in the shadow and aftermath of that catastrophic world event, and to negate that influence seems sacrilegious to me.

The stream of themes in this 1949 drama are as timely as ever: ageism in the work place (AARP-aged baby boomers can relate to that); trying to figure out what you want to be when you finally decide it’s time to grow up; how hard it actually is to scratch a living out of the earth, familial discord, and ultimately the soul-searching question Willy Loman is deliberating throughout the play— to be or not to be?

Willy Loman, the play’s protagonist, is an aging, down-and-out traveling salesman. He is a one of the most memorable characters in theatrical history, and Broadway veteran, David Manis, brings a tragically devastating force to his role as Willy, often dark, sometimes hopeful, yet, always captivating. He stunned the audience with his poignant delivery of the following lines, “After all the highways, and the trains, and the appointments and the years, you end up worth more dead than alive.”

Carolyn Popp is very convincing in her role as a devoted wife and mother. She brings a quiet strength and dignity to her part, and the requiem at the end when she says the lines, “I made the last payment on the house today…we’re free and clear...,” we can almost hear the sound of her heart breaking.

Rob DiSario makes the role of Biff, Willy Loman’s lost and disillusioned son, his own with his energy and expertise at delivering the multi-layered lines Miller so painstakingly wrote. His dramatic monologue at the end of the play brought the audience to tears. Scott T. Hinson, Biff’s brother, Happy, brings the people-pleasing, womanizing, boy/man part to life with an underlining charisma that makes us want to like Happy, even when we know that he is lying through his teeth.

Willy Cappuccio takes on two roles: that of Bernard, a hardworking, intelligent, well-educated young man; and Stanley, a good-natured waiter, who butchers the English language with every sentence. Cappuccio is such a good actor, that he completely transforms himself from one character to the next, often in just a matter of minutes. Keith Cornelius also tackles two roles, both of which he portrays persuasively – that of Ben, Willy’s brother, who struck it rich and who Willy envies; and Howard, the son of his former boss, whose coldness and indifference to Willy is a heartrending scene to witness.

Joe Minutillo’s masterful direction, Miller’s gut-wrenching script, the brilliant acting of all the cast members, and Mike Billings and Dalton Hamilton innovative set, lighting, and sound effects, all added up to an unforgettable night of theater – one that earned them a well-deserved standing ovation.

Brilliant and breathtaking, Bay Street’s revival of “Death of a Salesman,” is a must-see!

Tickets are available online at baystreet.org, or by calling the Box Office at 631-725-9500.

(Photo by Lenny Stucker)

Cindi Sansone-Braff, the Romance Whisperer, talks with the dead to show you how to live well and love better. She is an award-winning playwright and has a BFA in theatre from the University of Connecticut. She is the author of Grant Me a Higher Love and Why Good People Can’t Leave Bad Relationships. Her play, BEETHOVEN’S PROMETHEAN CONCERTO IN C MINOR WoO had its world premiere this summer at the BACCA ARTS CENTER in Lindenhurst. Visit her web site at: http://www.grantmeahigherlove.com.