Death of a Salesman at Lyric Stage

Can You Relate?

by Abigail Cote

3-13-14

   

  Pride is the feeling that you respect yourself and deserve to be respected by other people. Everyone has felt it at one point in their lives and having it can be an ego boost and give them confidence. However, having too much pride or encouraging it too much can have a negative effect, especially when it comes to this family and in their interactions.

     Death of a Salesman a play by Arthur Miller captures all the forms that pride can take. This play, directed by Spiro Veloudos, creates a struggle. There is squirming in your seat and difficulty to relate with and understand Willy (Ken Baltin). Willy’s constant muttering around the house gets increasingly worse and his wife, Linda (Paula Plum) is trying to figure out the right way to care for him. Both their sons, Biff (Kelby T. Alkin) and Happy (Joseph Marrella) are staying in their childhood room at their parents’ house. Back in the day, the family of four was able to wrap everything up in a perfect package with a bow on top, but now after years of being apart the past comes up and histories collide.     

     Relationships play a huge role in this production. Everyone is connected to someone. These relationships provide many things for the audience. They provide background, tension, and they even make the play relatable. Being exposed to conversations and dialogue between characters gives history about them and information about the ways that they relate.

    Of course, not everyone gets along so there is also tension created between characters. Tension can be exciting to watch, but also exhausting. In this play it was delivered in the right dosage. It built up as the play went on but didn’t become too dramatic and intense until the end.  

     This play is 65 years old, but yet, people are still interpreting it and watching it and reading it. There has to be something intriguing about it. People are attracted to things that can be brought back to them. The reason for this isn’t selfishness but the simplicity of being able to relate. The storyline of this play isn’t the most relatable thing. For instance, Biff. Not everyone has had their dream of being a football player crushed because they failed math class. Not everyone has had to move back into their childhood home to get back on their feet. However, most people have disagreed with their parent. Most people have tried to prove their parent wrong. Most people have been disappointed in their parent. The relatable things are the relationships between the people. This makes sense because they do in fact, come from the same word.

     It’s a change to see a play about a relatively basic situation be dramatic and emotional. This is something that gets the audience personally involved in different ways. It is interesting to see how each character has a different impact on each audience member. This play shows how the people that surround you have an effect on you and you have an effect on the people that surround you.