Death of a Salesman: Certain Private Conversations in Two Acts and A Requiem (Penguin Plays) - Softcover

Miller, Arthur

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140100415 ISBN 13: 9780140100419

Publisher: Penguin Books, 1987

Synopsis

Hailed as the first great play to lay bare the emptiness of America's relentless drive for material success, Death of a Salesman is Miller's classic portrait of an ordinary man's struggle to leave his mark on the world.

About this title

Review

Arthur Miller's 1949 Death of a Salesman has sold 11 million copies, and Willy Loman didn't make all those sales on a smile and a shoeshine. This play is the genuine article--it's got the goods on the human condition, all packed into a day in the life of one self-deluded, self-promoting, self-defeating soul. It's a sturdy bridge between kitchen-sink realism and spectral abstraction, the facts of particular hard times and universal themes. As Christopher Bigsby's mildly interesting afterword in this 50th-anniversary edition points out (as does Miller in his memoir, Timebends), Willy is closely based on the playwright's sad, absurd salesman uncle, Manny. But of course Miller made Manny into Everyman, and gave him the name of the crime commissioner Lohmann in Fritz Lang's angst-ridden 1932 Nazi parable, The Testament of Dr. Mabuse.

The tragedy of Loman the all-American dreamer and loser works eternally, on the page as on the stage. A lot of plays made history around 1949, but none have stepped out of history into the classic canon as Salesman has. Great as it was, Tennessee Williams's work can't be revived as vividly as this play still is, all over the world. (This edition has edifying pictures of Lee J. Cobb's 1949 and Brian Dennehy's 1999 performances.) It connects Aristotle, The Great Gatsby, On the Waterfront, David Mamet, and the archetypal American movie antihero. It even transcends its author's tragic flaw of pious preachiness (which undoes his snoozy The Crucible, unfortunately his most-produced play).

No doubt you've seen Willy Loman's story at least once. It's still worth reading. --Tim Appelo

From the Inside Flap

Stacy Keach and Jane Kaczmarek stars in Arthur Miller's 1949 masterpiece, a searing portrait of the physical, emotional, and psychological costs of the American dream. Willy Loman (Keach) is the play's iconic traveling salesman, whose family is torn apart by his desperate obsession with greatness and social acceptance. As his two sons cast about aimlessly for their station in life, Willy begins to come unraveled when the reality of his life threatens his long-cherished illusions.

A full cast L.A. Theatre works performance starring Stacy Keach and Jane Kaczmarek as Willy and Linda Loman, alongside Steven Culp as Biff Loman; Maureen Flannigan as Letta/Jenny; Jason Henning as Bernard/Stanley; Kathryn Meisle as The Woman; Tim Monsion as Uncle Ben; Sam Mcmurray as Charley; John Sloan as Happy Loman; Kate Steele as Miss Forsythe; Kenneth Alan Williams as Howard.

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0140100415
• ISBN 13: 9780140100419
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 139