DEATH OF A SALESMAN

 

By Arthur Miller

 

West Yorkshire Playhouse

Quarry Theatre

 

Designer: Francis O’Connor

Lighting Designer: Chris Davey

Sound Designer: Mic Pool

Composer: Simon Slater

 

Cast:  Marion Bailey, Sarah Ball, Nick Barber, Russell Bentley,

Tomm Coles, Christopher Ettridge, Tom Hodgkins, Philip Jackson,

Poppy Roe, Lex Shrapnel, Adam Venus, Maya Wasowicz

 

Reviews:

 

Esdaile tells Miller's story as faithfully and as powerfully as she can.

And it is magnificent.

Philip Jackson, the ubiquitous TV actor, seemed a strange choice for Willy.

He has proved any naysayers very wrong with a towering – and crumbling – performance.

Like his director's, his is a magnificent achievement. 

Yorkshire Post ****

 

 

Director Sarah Esdaile skilfully negotiates the no-man's land between fact and fantasy,

directing the flashbacks and Loman's hallucinatory moments

so that they are woven into the overlapping here-and-now…

It's 16 years since this play was last seen at this address, and Esdaile's

excellent revival presents it newly minted for a new generation. 

The Independent ****

 

There is a wonderful final image in Sarah Esdaile's revival of Arthur Miller's

great play of misplaced and broken dreams: Linda Loman and her sons trudging

along the road well travelled by her salesman husband, Willy – a road that has

previously been a highway to nowhere, but which now draws them towards an unknown future….

the production bursts into vivid, raging life just as Willy is slipping away.

We watch him, a big man suddenly rendered tiny,

who stands with hoe in hand, quietly digging his own grave. 

The Guardian ***