Hannah Steblay and Mo Perry Photo by Sobottka Photography

Eleanor Burgess' Wife of a Salesman is, if you haven't guessed, a look at Arthur Miller's 1949 play Death of a Salesman from the perspective of Linda Loman, the wife of Miller's title character, Willie Loman. Wife of a Salesman premiered in 2022 as a co-production of Writers' Theatre in Glencoe, Illinois and Milwaukee Repertory Theater in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It has been brought to the Twin Cities by Girl Friday Productions, who are giving it a sterling production at Gremlin Theatre.

Miller created Linda as a supporting character, with emphasis on the word "supporting." Her entire purpose in his play is to provide support to her husband and rationalize his shortcomings, even as she sees him falling into a moral and emotional abyss. One of those shortcomings is infidelity. Willie has been having an affair with the receptionist at a business he sells goods to in Boston, on frequent trips away from his home and family in Brooklyn.

Burgess speculates on what might transpire if Linda Loman had known about the affair (students of Miller's work are divided on whether or not she did) and made a trip to Boston to confront the "other woman." Wife of a Salesman, running ninety minutes without intermission, is an engrossing and insightful meditation on what these two women would say to one another, what moral arguments they proffer, and whether one or the other–or both–will yield her ground.

The play, set in the 1940s like Miller's, opens with the unnamed Mistress curled on the floor in front of her sofa, wearing a shimmery rose-pink robe, her auburn hair flowing around her shoulders, and painting her fingernails bright red, while listening to a melodramatic soap opera on the radio. The Mistress is enthralled by the high romance and annoyed when commercials interrupt with chirpy messages aimed at convincing women to buy products that will land their man.

There is a knock at the door and she opens it to reveal a very different woman, wearing a nubby brown skirt, a drab overcoat, and blocky sensible black shoes (Barb Portinga's costumes are spot-on). She introduces herself as a door-to-door fabric saleswoman, coyly suggesting that the Mistress could order fabrics to make clothes for her children–if she has children. No? Or she could make clothes for her husband–does she have a husband? This gambit is pretty soon over: the desperate "saleswoman" is the Wife (also unnamed). When the Mistress says she had been curious to know what the Wife was like, the Wife asserts she didn't drive six hours from Brooklyn to Boston out of curiosity. She is there to ask–to demand–that the other woman stop sleeping with her husband.

Burgess's very smart dialogue captures the language each of these women would use and the perspective each of them brings from having lived very different lives. What might have come across as a contrived gimmick ends up feeling like a viable, authentic conversation with heated exchanges approaching violence, as well as glimmers of empathy for the other woman's plight–not that either one is about to concede.

Half way through, an unexpected incident brings a third character, named Jim, into the mix. To avoid any spoilers, I will not say what Jim's relationship is to these two women, other than telling you he is not the husband. At this juncture, we get some new perspectives from the two women, both on the plight they have been arguing and also from a more contemporary vantage point. What surprises is that it turns out that the two are not all that different.

The standoff between the Mistress and Wife continues to yield surprises, right up to the end, which, while I wish it would have turned out differently, makes sense dramatically. I attended Wife of a Salesman alone and sorely wished I had someone to talk this over with on the ride home. Burgess doesn't take a clear-cut moral stand on the characters or their actions, which makes it a juicy and stimulating play that stirs our own moral registers to ask question to which there are not easy answers.

Mo Perry as The Wife and Hannah Steblay as The Mistress are both sensational, creating wholly authentic renditions of their characters, and both handling the respective accents (Boston and Brooklyn) like natives (Gillian C. Rosewell serves as dialect coach). Craig Johnson has the far smaller role of Jim, using it to bring some comic relief into what is an otherwise tense encounter. An off-stage voice is provided by Megan K Pence, who also directs the production.

Pence's direction is assured and seamless, drawing in our rapt attention from start to finish. Pence is also the new artistic director of Girl Friday Productions. The company in the past was known for putting on large shows with big casts, but only mounting one every two years, allowing time to marshal resources for their next production. After a brief hiatus, (their most recent show had been Life Sucks in 2023), Wife of a Salesman paints on a smaller canvas than Girl Friday has in the past, but nevertheless, as Pence states in the program notes, "It wrestles with some pretty big questions."

Eric Morris' scenic design provides a vivid facsimile of a single, working woman's apartment, circa 1946, complete with Formica kitchen table, sofa under a slipcover with a pleated skirt, and fashion magazine covers pinned to the wall over her daybed. Props designer Brandt Roberts fine tunes the atmosphere, with period-appropriate radio, telephone, glassware, and other items. Lighting designer Tracy V. Joe funnels the lights on the characters to draw us into their conflict and creates the effect of there being no space for either woman to break free of her dilemma.

I went to Wife of a Salesman completely unfamiliar with playwright Eleanor Burgess. Her bio in the program lists productions of her numerous plays in New York and around the country, but not a single Twin Cities theatre company is cited. If Wife of a Salesman is indicative of her work, Girl Friday has done a service to our community, not only by bringing us this play, but by introducing us to a playwright deserving of our attention. Meanwhile, go see this play.

Wife of a Salesman, presented by Girl Friday Productions, runs through October 4, 2026, at the Gremlin Theatre, 550 Vandalia Street, Saint Paul MN. For tickets and other information, go to www.GirlFridayProductions.org.

Playwright: Eleanor Burgess; Director: Megan K. Pence; Scenic Design: Eric Morris; Costume Design: Barb Portinga; Lighting Design: Tracy V. Joe; Sound Design: D'aniel Stock; Props Design: Brandt Roberts; Dialect Coach: Gillian C. Rosewell; Fight Director: Michael Kelley; Stage Manager: Amanda Barsness.

Cast: Craig Johnson (Jim), Megan K. Pence (Angela), Mo Perry (The Wife), Hannah Steblay (The Mistress), Radio Voices: Kirby Bennet, Sam Landman, Brandt Roberts, D'aniel Stock.