It is one of the great classics of American Theater Death of a Salesman,
a drama confronting American dreams and harsh realities. A new production
opening Sunday on Broadway offers a different window into a story
captivating audiences for more than 70 years, Jeffrey Brown talks
to actors Wendell Pierce and Sharon D. Clark for Arts and Culture
Series canvas.
There were promises made across his chest. You mustn't tell me you
have people to see Death of a salesman. Willy Loman is a proud but
beaten down man in aging traveling salesman grasping at illusions
of his own success and that of his sons
the orange and throw the peel away. A man is not a piece of fruit.
He's not the finest character that ever lived.
But he's a human being, while his wife, Linda, desperately tries
to save him.
So attention must be paid Broadway production Directed by Miranda
Cromwell. There's an additional reality. The Loman family is black
attention must be finally paid to such a person
for actors Wendell Pierce and Sharon D. Clark brings a new richness
and depth to the story. It doesn't change its augmented the delusion.
Uh,
The pursuit of this American dream. This idealism, um,
possibility, impossibility, tangible and intangible thing and
But he refuses to accept that I wanted Linda to be the linchpin of
the family as
Black women are lynchpins in families, and I think if we're going
to do this through that perspective through that lens, then for me,
it's important. That's what we see. 58 is a Juilliard Conservatory
trained actor and those two are definitely straight up drug executions,
who first gained wide attention in the early two thousands as detective
bunk Moreland on the HBO series the Wire and has gone on too many
other powerful TV, film and stage roles.
You should have left me behind. There's still time for that
woman. He takes on one of the most defining characters in theater
history, one created by legendary playwright Arthur Miller in 1949
and played on Broadway by a Who's Who of renowned actors.
He's got spirit. Jakob, George C. Scott, Dustin Hoffman, Brian Dennehy,
Philip Seymour Hoffman all great all White in theater tradition.
This was a white family. It's been a dream role for peers. But in
a recent talk at famed Broadway restaurant, Sardi's, he thought,
First of others, I think of all the men who
I wanted to play it before because of the times and the ignorance
of
Of prohibitions of who could and could not play it. Um
I wanted to do it in honor of them. Just black black black actors
get the chance to get the chance. I think about you know some of
my heroes specifically Ossie Davis. I think of
Um
The most Roscoe Lee Browne. Men who actually inspired me to become
an actor as I was a young boy in New Orleans reading.
You know these theater newsletters from New York and watching their
careers, Nothing ever happened underground in Louisiana.
Veteran British stage actor who has also been active in TV and films.
She gained a Tony nomination earlier this year for her Broadway performance
in Caroline, or Change in which he played a maid in a Southern white
family. This opportunity, she says, came as a shock. Never, ever
put myself in this role. I never thought anyone would ask me to do
it so
It wasn't it wasn't in the car. It wasn't even in your dreams never
even thought about it. I never even thought about it. I never thought
anyone would approach someone who looks like me to do this role will
make a big breakfast finish. Linda Loman has often been portrayed
as something of a doormat trying to bridge the gulf between her husband
and their two sons. They have played by Chris Davis and happy McKinley
Belcher.
Clark looked for her strength and found it in her own family story
on this, my mom, do you know what I mean? The honors all those women?
You mean? My mom came from Jamaica to Britain to a country where
she wasn't welcomed, You know, no blacks, no Irish, no dogs and having
to make away and having to hold the family together, and also
my parents were the first ones.
From my family that came through so all of my family came through
my house first, so I grew up with my family before they all found
their spaces. So for me on this them and what they went through in
order facility iTunes of life that they had to deal with a pop. Take
a seat You want a drink class has always been and remains an issue
in the play and economic inequality that now also has a contemporary
feel. Along with the new dynamic of race. The words haven't changed,
but at times they resonate in the theater.
In a new way. Something happened last night.
That was
One of the most cathartic things that ever happened. In one scene.
Willie had admonished his son, Biff, before a meeting with a prospective
boss. Anything falls off his desk while you're talking to him.
Like a package or something like that. Don't you pick it up?
We got office boys with that later, Though. Willie himself faces
the same situation with his younger white boss woman screamed out
in the audience.
I knew it was a black woman.
Just said no.
Don't
You can feel the pain that she had gone through understanding what
Willie was going through understanding what she probably had to go
through the indignity.
And she could not keep silent really does pick it up. He does lose
his job and his relationship with his sons and eventually his mind,
including in scenes with his long lost brother, played by Tony winner
Andre DeShields. In this psychological breakdown, Clark says she
found another way into her character.
My thing is to look after this man.
No matter what, because also, we're dealing with mental illness as
well In the time when we're not talking about mental and were based
with only just coming to terms of talking about mental illness now.
If you kind of think about him that time where there would be
to turn, you know, you say to someone, you know, I think my husband
might be going crazy. The men in white coats might come and drag
him off. So you it's how you deal with that as well and for me.
What holds her to that is love. I don't know what to do in this situation
where my man is basically losing his mind in front of me and trying
to kill themselves. So all I can do is love him. Love him love him
because that is the wealth of that family for the actors. While their
version is more specific in its black focus, it remains universal.
Very thing that made this a theater classic in the first place. It
changes you
and I think back
I wrote this this morning to a friend.
It's all those years ago. And Julie I we was what do we doing this
for? Why are we doing this?
It took me 40 years
training practice and the you know the real intense sort of conservatory
training And I said, Ah, this is what it was for Death of a salesman
runs through January, 23rd.