Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – Radically reconsidered revivals of American warhorses arrive on Broadway for limited runs: DEATH OF A SALESMAN and 1776

• By drediman
• October 10, 2022
• No Comments

This past weekend, I caught — in quick succession — a pair of radically reconsidered revivals of staples of American theater, both of which have arrived on the Great White Way for limited runs. Here are my thoughts on them.

DEATH OF A SALESMAN
Hudson Theatre
Through January 15

Last night, the anticipated revival of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman (SOMEWHAT RECOMMENDED) opened on Broadway at the Hudson Theatre. The production arrives in New York after having enjoyed an acclaimed run in London’s West End in 2019. Director Miranda Cromwell (who originally co-helmed the production with the brilliant Marianne Elliott) ambitiously attempts to reshape the play from the perspective of a Black Loman family. By far the most successful aspect of this new staging is this race-conscious element, which laces the scenes between the Lomans and the white society in which they aspire to thrive with understandable anxiety. Unfortunately, Cromwell’s intensely stylized staging — which incorporates a significant musical component — muddles instead of enhances Miller’s text, often trading in raw emotionalism for clichéd histrionics, particularly in Willy’s many hallucinatory flashbacks. As such, Willy’s fall doesn’t quite land with the same tragic punch as in previous productions I’ve seen. In the need to evolve the play in all respects, the production sadly often registers like a parody of the play than the primary artifact itself. Although this Salesman is far from a definitive rendition of the classic play, its jazzy, noirish aesthetic creates undeniably striking and haunting visual and aural vistas. Within the context of Cromwell’s vision for the play, her cast excels. Wendell Pierce and Sharon D. Clarke once again star as Willy and Linda, giving fascinatingly non-intuitive performances that kept my senses perked. The most notable addition from the London version is the casting of Tony-winner André De Shields (looking like he stepped straight out of Hadestown) as Willy’s brother Ben; his singular presence grounds a revival that’s often lost in the ether of its own creation.

1776
Roundabout Theatre Company at the American Airlines Theatre
Through January 5

This past weekend at the American Airlines Theatre, I also had the opportunity to catch another radical interpretation — courtesy of Roundabout Theatre Company — of another American warhorse, the Tony-winning musical 1776 (RECOMMENDED). The first thing you’ll notice is that the work’s founding fathers are now portrayed by an all female, transgendered, and nonbinary cast, primarily comprised of actors of color. But the rethinking doesn’t end there. Like the aforementioned revival of Death of a Salesman, this 1776 aggressively but more successfully reassesses America through a defiantly contemporary lens. The production is essentially staged on a bare stage (with only a few curtains and the requisite tables and chairs, effectively suggesting the blank slate from which the country sprouted from), unmooring the piece from both its historical setting, as well as the musical’s traditionally naturalistic presentation. Although Jeffrey L. Page and Diane Paulus’s staging suggests that the American Experiment is in the continual process of reinvention and recalibration, it never makes excuses for the underlying musical itself, allowing it to be accountable for its inaccuracies and misrepresentations through subtle directorial touches sprinkled throughout (e.g., scenes involving Thomas Jefferson, the revival’s final tableau, etc.). Although some of these may sit somewhat uneasily with the material, the revival in its totality pops with exuberance and hopeful, if somewhat unearned optimism. The diverse ensemble cast give spirited performances — Crystal Lucas-Perry’s John Adams and Carolee Carmelo’s John Dickinson are especially polished and forceful — that carefully consider the moral complexities of the founding of our country.