We take a look at what is being said about Joe Mantello’s production, starring Laurie Metcalf and Nathan Lane.
The Guardian: **** “That it works – that this show teases out disdain and sympathy for its family in equal measure – is a testament to Lane, for whom Willy Loman has been a career-long aspiration. (A production with Mantello has been in the works for over three decades; this show’s protracted path owes in part to its producer Scott Rudin, now in the midst of a comeback several years after allegations of bullying.) Lane’s trademark brassiness lends the character’s long-winded rants an improbably winsome sheen, his embarrassments a piercing ache. There’s a hypnotic rhythm to the madness of his Willy; when it’s time to go, he nearly takes the show with him. It’s a bravura turn, but the show’s heart remains Linda, whom Metcalf imbues with crisp practicality. Dutiful, entirely un-naive and blisteringly angry, she is devastatingly economical even in her most withering and emotionally prostrate moments, Metcalf conveying the exhaustion of a woman used to holding everything together.”
Time Out: ***** “Everything comes together in this production: Rudy Mance’s costumes, Robert Pickens’s hair and wigs, Mikaal Sulaiman’s sound, Caroline Shaw’s original music. Will you have other chances to see Death of a Salesman? Probably, sure, almost certainly. But let me put it this way: I have seen three other revivals of Salesman on Broadway since 1999; I have watched the film version and the TV movie; I have heard the LP of the 1950 cast; I have read the script countless times. And I consider this revival to be the best account of Miller’s play I’ve ever encountered, and the best I’m likely ever to see. How’s that for a pitch?”
Wall Street Journal: “Nathan Lane and Laurie Metcalf star in an outstanding, stylized production of Arthur Miller’s classic American drama.”
Deadline: “But first and last, Salesman is Willy’s story, and generation after Broadway generation has thrown its best into the role, from Lee J. Cobb, Fredric March (in the 1951 film), George C. Scott, Brian Dennehy and Dustin Hoffman to Philip Seymour Hoffman and Wendell Pierce. Lane takes his place among the best, his Willy Loman a powder keg of frustration and disappointment and deep, deep sadness. Lane uses his loud, outside voice to excellent effect, his shouts of exasperation and anger giving way to instant regret and recrimination. Watch, future Willys, and pay attention.”
Theatrely.com: “While Metcalf and Lane cannot fully shake certain familiar mannerisms, both ultimately find an unshowy ordinariness that could, in another production, truly overwhelm. Lane plays Willy’s acceptance of his fate with an unnatural, devastating smallness: in Metcalf’s hands, Linda’s final lines are almost tossed off, as she scarcely herself even has energy left to care.”
Variety: “The anchor in all this is Metcalf, who is characteristically precise and wrenching as the fiercely loyal and trodden-upon Linda, a reminder of the stakes every time she’s onstage — and not just because she’s the one crunching the numbers. The desperation of aging while rubbing two coins together comes alive when she’s around, which is essential for the story’s roller coaster of hope and defeat to land its emotional punches. The revival is worth seeing for her performance alone.”
The Hollywood Reporter: “Down to the smallest roles, this production is astutely cast, and its arresting design elements add a suitably shabby grandeur to the play’s unsparing view of America’s broken promises. Mantello does some of his finest work in a heartfelt revival that will be remembered for the estimable Lane’s career-crowning performance. It’s magnificent theater.”
Theatermania.com: “This Death of a Salesman got deep in my bones, and it’s been a while since a theatrical experience has given me that powerful emotional response that Aristotle called catharsis. Part of that is due to the enduring power of this play, part is due to the beauty of the production. This Death of a Salesman is one for the ages.”
New York Post: **** ” Yet director Joe Mantello’s pummeling revival, which opened Thursday night, accomplishes what this play at its most potent should. Yes, you leave raving about the sterling performances of Nathan Lane and Laurie Metcalf and the striking stagecraft. But, for more than a few people I overheard on the way out, it also powerfully summoned a tougher topic: their own lives.”
Entertainment Weekly: “Nathan Lane is simply brilliant in the harrowing role of Willy, a salesman whose best days are well behind him. Willy’s struggles at work (where he is no longer even pulling a salary and is earning what little he has straight off commission) are exacerbated by a painful descent into dementia — causing him to bounce back and forth between the present and the past. Lane is masterful and does not miss a beat, alternating between reliving the past promise of his son Biff’s football prowess and his own current diminished state and strained relationship with his would-be golden boy.”
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