Broadway Reviews Theatre Review by Howard Miller - April 9, 2026 Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller. Directed by Joe Mantello. Music by Caroline Shaw. Scenic design by Chloe Lamford. Costume design by Rudy Mance. Lighting design by Jack Knowles. Sound design by Mikaal Sulaiman. Hair and wig design by Robert Pickens. Vocal coach Kate Wilson. Movement director Sasha Milavic Davies. Associate director Lily Dyble.
Brush up on your Greek tragedies and you will find many examples of families in the throes of collapse: Aeschylus' Oresteia trilogy or Sophocles' "Theban Plays," of which both Oedipus and Antigone have been the subjects of theatrical productions this season. Now, using Miller's original draft and handwritten notes on Salesman to guide him, Mantello has focused his lens on the collapse of the entire Loman family. And here, as in the ancient theatrical works (minus the gods), the tragedy stems from very real human foibles of hubris and self-delusion. From the time we enter the theater and are faced with Chloe Lamford's intriguing, albeit puzzling, set design, we know we are in for an original interpretation. Spread out across the stage is, for all appearances, a deserted auto repair shop: the functioning metal garage door, the accumulated piles of oil-soaked dirt, a few scattered tools, the filtered light coming through grease-encrusted windows. This is the Loman family's Brooklyn home, or more likely, a visual rendition of the state of mind of Willy Loman. Starring in that role is Nathan Lane, who is giving a nerve-wracking performance as a man whose grasp on life is in the throes of permanently shutting down; indeed, were I in charge of the set design, I'd show the walls literally closing in over the course of the production. That's the sense of it, and it is abundantly clear from the get-go that Willy's mind is in the process of disintegrating. (Maybe it's overkill, but keep an eye out for the presumably intentional use of anachronistic props as a further indication that past, present, and future are no longer fixed in Willy's mind.) But if that's all there was to Mantello's vision for the play, then all there would be left to do would be to allow Willy to somnambulate through the rest of the show, muttering to himself or carrying on conversations with the ghosts of his past. But, as is true of most people who are falling prey to dementia or Alzheimer's disease, there also are moments of clarity. Thus, there are scenes in which Willy interacts with the "real world" well within what is generally viewed as the norms of social intercourse. In these, we see Willy act with self-assurance (though that, too, is in decline), borne of his many years of a life on the road as a successful salesman and decided head of the Loman household.
The "boys" are temporarily back home, and their presence is an unwelcome additional burden on Linda, especially as they are depicted here; in modern terms, they'd be the so-called boomerang kids who are living in their parents' basement. Thirty-four-year-old Biff (Christopher Abbott), the elder of the two, is thoroughly disillusioned, butting heads with his father and seeing through the false hope of the American Dream that he has been fed from childhood. His brother Happy (Ben Ahlers), two years Biff's junior, lives from day to day as a hotshot ladies' man, whose shallow values are those he has latched onto from Willy. The core of the production, its beating heart, rests with the exchanges among the family members, each of whom is adrift and clinging to whatever bit of flotsam they can latch onto. You can sense in the performances, especially when the four are interacting, that many hours of rehearsal time were spent in building the sense of authenticity that pours out to the audience. Mantello and this superb quartet of actors have found a way to give the production both its mythic shape and its psychological authenticity, and it comes across magnificently. The rest of the supporting cast members are perhaps less highlighted for the sake of the main thrust, but they also are giving well-delineated performances. Is this the definitive interpretation of Death of a Salesman? Of course not. Nor should we expect it to be. That's a reflection on the inherent quality of Arthur Miller's work, that it continues to speak to an audience despite the passage of close to 80 years since it was first presented. Even if you've seen one or more of the previous Broadway productions, do yourself a favor and catch this one. Attention must be paid, after all.
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