REVIEW
✭✭✭✭✭ 5/5
ARTHUR MILLER’S
DEATH OF A SALESMAN
Tue 8th April – Sat 12th April 2025
Palace Theatre, Southend
✭✭✭✭✭ 5/5
ARTHUR MILLER’S
DEATH OF A SALESMAN
Tue 8th April – Sat 12th April 2025
Palace Theatre, Southend
One of the greatest plays of the twentieth century, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman play will be familiar with most theatre-goers and more likely students studying the play. Written in 1949 it centres on travelling salesman, Willy Loman, and the last 24 hours of his life as he makes his last long, weary and confused drive home after yet another unsuccessful work trip. He arrives back to his family with the realisation that after 35 years travelling the length and breadth of New England that maybe now he's too old and it’s all become too much. He's so delusional, he can't even remember which car he was driving. He's a pitiful sight.
Death of a Salesman is a play that gives audiences much to resonate with. The idea of the 'American Dream', the ambition to do well, the need to fit in with peers, the struggle of a father’s expectations against a son’s reality are all relatable issues that draw you in to this play. The Loman family also has a cauldron of underlying issues bubbling away, fuelled by a father who has over inflated his job and built up expectations for his boys, Biff and Happy, that reluctantly aren’t reciprocated.
The design of this production by Neil Haynes provides minimalist yet strong staging with a cast who, when not performing centre stage, sit stage left and right awaiting their cues. There is also musical accompaniment from three of the cast playing violin, flute and mandolin which provides a beautifully haunting and harmonic score to relevant scenes. This could have proved a distraction but there is no way you can lose focus from any of the action taking place on stage when this cast are in action. It’s compelling viewing throughout.
The leading characters have been perfectly cast and are brilliantly led by David Hayman in the role of Willy Loman; in fact the whole evening is provided with a masterclass of completely investable characters and performances. Brothers, Biff and Happy, played by Daniel Cahill and Michael Wallace, give us a wonderful insight to their characters’ desire to please their father whilst also desperate to do the jobs that couldn’t be farther away from what Willy wants them to do. A reminder of how children, also as adults, had an instilled respect for their parents in those days. Cahill and Wallace’s onstage chemistry and emotional depth bring the complicated relationship with their father into sharp focus.
Biff is the son with the biggest fear of failing his father, whilst simultaneously yearning for his love, and it’s a shocking and heartbreaking scene that brings everything to a climax when the reasons are revealed why.
Beth Marshall also gives an endearing and nicely understated portrayal of Linda, Willy’s concerned and devoted wife. She can see just how burned out, sick and exhausted her husband has become and is terrified that he will take his own life but she also has to be the peacekeeper between her sons and husband telling the boys that, "he's just a little boat looking for a harbour".
The performance of the night, of course, has to go to David Hayman, who completely embodies the role of Willy Loman from the very moment he steps on to the Palace Theatre stage. Bewildered, confused, drained and hopelessly fearful that he no longer has any control of his mind, senses or life, he mumbles and bumbles through frequently confusing conversations with his family, giving rise to constant flashbacks providing the audience with clues to just how the family dynamic has been affected by his actions. There’s a sting for Willy when his neighbour Charlie’s son ends up being a successful solicitor, married with a baby with the realisation that Charlie hardly ever engaged with his sons growing up; and yet, despite all of his pushing for his boys to do well, they never reached his expectations. How did it all go so wrong?
Director, Andy Arnold has certainly got the best out of this talented cast with a production that moves perfectly at a pace with the action taking place. This production feels gentle in its approach yet has the power to punch its way to a climatic ending which will leave audiences with much to reflect on.
Death of a Salesman is a reminder, especially in these times, of the human cost of chasing unreachable dreams and how family relationships can be unintentionally destroyed. Whether you’re familiar with Death of a Salesman or seeing it for the first time, this production is one not to be missed.
Review: Kim Tobin
Death of a Salesman is a play that gives audiences much to resonate with. The idea of the 'American Dream', the ambition to do well, the need to fit in with peers, the struggle of a father’s expectations against a son’s reality are all relatable issues that draw you in to this play. The Loman family also has a cauldron of underlying issues bubbling away, fuelled by a father who has over inflated his job and built up expectations for his boys, Biff and Happy, that reluctantly aren’t reciprocated.
The design of this production by Neil Haynes provides minimalist yet strong staging with a cast who, when not performing centre stage, sit stage left and right awaiting their cues. There is also musical accompaniment from three of the cast playing violin, flute and mandolin which provides a beautifully haunting and harmonic score to relevant scenes. This could have proved a distraction but there is no way you can lose focus from any of the action taking place on stage when this cast are in action. It’s compelling viewing throughout.
The leading characters have been perfectly cast and are brilliantly led by David Hayman in the role of Willy Loman; in fact the whole evening is provided with a masterclass of completely investable characters and performances. Brothers, Biff and Happy, played by Daniel Cahill and Michael Wallace, give us a wonderful insight to their characters’ desire to please their father whilst also desperate to do the jobs that couldn’t be farther away from what Willy wants them to do. A reminder of how children, also as adults, had an instilled respect for their parents in those days. Cahill and Wallace’s onstage chemistry and emotional depth bring the complicated relationship with their father into sharp focus.
Biff is the son with the biggest fear of failing his father, whilst simultaneously yearning for his love, and it’s a shocking and heartbreaking scene that brings everything to a climax when the reasons are revealed why.
Beth Marshall also gives an endearing and nicely understated portrayal of Linda, Willy’s concerned and devoted wife. She can see just how burned out, sick and exhausted her husband has become and is terrified that he will take his own life but she also has to be the peacekeeper between her sons and husband telling the boys that, "he's just a little boat looking for a harbour".
The performance of the night, of course, has to go to David Hayman, who completely embodies the role of Willy Loman from the very moment he steps on to the Palace Theatre stage. Bewildered, confused, drained and hopelessly fearful that he no longer has any control of his mind, senses or life, he mumbles and bumbles through frequently confusing conversations with his family, giving rise to constant flashbacks providing the audience with clues to just how the family dynamic has been affected by his actions. There’s a sting for Willy when his neighbour Charlie’s son ends up being a successful solicitor, married with a baby with the realisation that Charlie hardly ever engaged with his sons growing up; and yet, despite all of his pushing for his boys to do well, they never reached his expectations. How did it all go so wrong?
Director, Andy Arnold has certainly got the best out of this talented cast with a production that moves perfectly at a pace with the action taking place. This production feels gentle in its approach yet has the power to punch its way to a climatic ending which will leave audiences with much to reflect on.
Death of a Salesman is a reminder, especially in these times, of the human cost of chasing unreachable dreams and how family relationships can be unintentionally destroyed. Whether you’re familiar with Death of a Salesman or seeing it for the first time, this production is one not to be missed.
Review: Kim Tobin
Death of a Salesman UK Tour Dates
Tue 8th April – Sat 12th April 2025 Palace Theatre, Southend
Tue 15th April – Sat 19th April 2025 Gaiety Theatre, Dublin
Tue 22nd April – Sat 26th April 2025 Wycombe Swan Theatre, High Wycombe
Tue 29th April – Sat 3rd May 2025 Fareham LIVE
Photo Credit: Tommy Ga-ken wan
