May 11, 2007

Poor delivery kills 'Salesman'

Traveling show revisits tale of shattered American Dream

John Angell Grant / Theater Columnist

How much of our lives do we spend alone in our heads living in fantasy? That unsettling question arises after viewing "Death of a Salesman," Arthur Miller's classic 1947 Pulitzer Prize-winning play about a man on the verge of a deep psychic meltdown.

Presented by the Traveling Jewish Theater, "Salesman" is now running on the Peninsula at Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts. Later in the month the production moves to Berkeley for a run at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts.

Set in 1940s Brooklyn, "Death of a Salesman" is about a man who daydreams his way through life. Salesman Willy Loman is the king of magical thinking.

Sitting alone late at night at the kitchen table in his modest Brooklyn home, Willy reviews his life, talking to family members and others who come alive on stage in his imagination.
In Willy's mind, the American dream of success is just around the corner. Unfortunately, very little in his fantasy memory is true.

"Death of a Salesman" is one of those works of art which, when performed well, hits with a deep psychological and mythical force.

In the current Traveling Jewish Theater production, director Aaron Davidman's surprisingly fast-paced staging manages to effectively blur the transition between reality and daydream, by not defining distinct borders between the two.

There are problems with this staging, though. A cellist (Jessica Ivry) on stage plays her original bowed and pizzicato solo compositions, giving the production a live soundtrack. The points at which these musical devices are used, however, seem arbitrary and spotty, giving them a feel of being merely a device.

Similarly, a bed standing vertically on end upstage, and used only briefly, also feels merely like a device and does not achieving the surreal, world-turned-on-its-end effect the director may have been hoping for.

Most significant for this production is the gruff performance by Corey Fischer in the lead role as Willy, more broadly played than usual in this production. The performance's broadness costs the character of Willy some of his emotional transitions, and also makes his relationships with those around him less interesting than a more precisely modulated performance would offer.

In fact, all of the supporting actors in this production give carefully defined performances that are more effective than Fischer's gruff lead. Volatile Michael Navarra, for example, persuasively portrays disaffected oldest son Biff, the high school sports hero who peaked early in life and can't see the point of running in his father's rat race like a hamster on a wheel.

Younger son Happy (John Sousa) is the competitive junior businessman who brags compulsively about sleeping with lots of women. Julian Lopez-Morillas appears ghost-like, in a white suit, from time to time in fantasy scenes as Willy's brother Ben who disappeared into the jungles of Africa as a young man to make his fortune in diamonds.

Zac Jaffee creates a really interesting, thoughtful, and compassionate character in a few strong scenes as the geeky, studious neighbor boy Bernard. Picked on by Willy and his sons as a teenager, Bernard became more successful in adult life, and managed to retain his love and compassion for the Loman family.

As taken-for-granted wife Linda, Jeri Lynn Cohen is the Lomans' co-dependent anchor, providing the desperate glue that keeps the nuclear family life together.

The battle in "Death of a Salesman" is between Willy's inability to see his personal reality and his need to see the world in a positive light to make a sale and make a living.

Along the way, this play also turns out to be an exegesis of the architecture of a nuclear family's co-dependency, and a sticky Oedipal untangling. In the end, everyone in the Loman family is forced through the painful unraveling of their delusional magical thinking.

"Death of a Salesman" runs two more weekends on the Peninsula, and then moves to the Julia Morgan Center in Berkeley. Thursday performances in both locations are pay-what-you-can.

Rating: Two and one half stars

E-mail John Angell Grant at jagplays@paloaltodailynews.com.