Death of a Salesman (review)

Spoilers ahoy! 

As it happens, this year has been one full of excellent productions of classics. Latest is Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, by A Noise Within.  My own theory, for whatever it might be worth, focuses on the times in which we are living.  Art comments, questions, examines LIFE.  When we do the same we find art speaks more to us, so we pay more attention. 

Especially the classics, and most especially the ones who address issues of our own times.

Arthur Miller's most famous play is slightly autobiographical (a lot of them are), but what really makes it resonate remains the fact it feels autobiographical for someone we know.  To some extent, also, for ourselves.  

Willy Loman (Geoff Elliott) walks on stage looking exhausted beyond words.  Not just physically, but down into the soul.  His wife Linda (Deborah Strang) does her best to listen, to comfort, to basically help as much as she can.  Along the way we soon learn this couple's two sons are staying with them for a bit.  Happy (Ian Littleworth) is the son who has his own apartment but decided to visit for a day or so.  Biff (David Kepner), the older son and clearly the favorite, arrived from Texas after years of farming, wandering, trying to find...something.  

Clearly, this family has problems.  Problems with a capital P that rhymes with C that stands for Capitalism.  Willy in particular loses himself in memories, focusing on past and present hopes, ideas, fears and frustrations, his prejudices and strange blind spots.  Almost immediately we get a sense of him as a man lost, a man who increasingly seems never ever to have found himself, never learned the things he desperately believes he needed.  Now in his sixties, tired and confused, his career as a salesman dwindling by any metric, the man visibly is coming apart at the seams--not least his demands from others while proving himself all but incapable of listening to others.

That we don't hate this man is one of Miller's major achievements.  Instead, we ache for him.

As well we should.  Willy Loman is us, after all.  Trapped in a world he did not choose, bereft of good options (at least any he can perceive and/or accept), without the personal resources to be more than desperate.  Far too close for all our lives for comfort--and hence fascinating in way like a slow motion train wreck.  Except we weep instead of gawk.

Miller wanted a play without scene breaks, and the action of the play--including memories and dreams--pretty much flow without interruption, at least in the first act.  The scale feels intimate and somehow vastly deep.  Unlike in classical tragedy, Willy did not make anyone personal mistake--his errors, while real, seem all very understandable,  entirely human.  Devastating, though.  Because for all his preening about his friends and how esteemed he says he is, all the support others offer remains meager.  Not individually, but cumulatively.  He walks a lonely road, even when holding a wife in his arms, gazing at sons he adores who likewise adore him.  Because they aren't enough.  Life is bigger than any one family, no matter how close--even were they flawless and these folks show off just how human every single one of them are.

We watch a play which poses several questions, which sooner or later mostly do get answers.  Exactly why is Willy in this situation?  How did Biff's life fall apart so totally, and what did Willy have to do with that?  Is there a way out for Willy, for Biff, for Happ or for Linda?  Out of a stifling, shallow present of short-term hopes and concerns which threaten to overwhelm?  

Director Julia Rodriquez-Elliott gives us an astounding theatrical experience, not least because with Scenic Designer Frederica Nascimento the "look" and "feel" of this production comes across as slightly less naturalistic, leaning more towards the dreamlike or mythic.  Frankly, I will always applaud this, not least because it leans into live theatre's strengths rather than attempting to copy film or television.  Likewise I want to herald the uniformly fine cast, including Kasey Mahaffy, Cassandra Marie Murphy, Bert Emmett, David Nevell, Michael Uribes, Jacob Cherry, Dominique Razon, and Rachel K. Han.  From literally the very first moment when the play begins until the very final moment, I felt totally sucked in, soul and mind.

Death of a Salesman plays Thursdays, Fridays & Saturdays @ 7:30 p.m., Saturdays & Sundays @ 2 p.m. until April 29, 2026 (no matiness on March 28) at A Noise Within,  3352 E Foothill Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91107 (Free parking available directly behind the theater at the Sierra Madre Villa Metro parking structure, 149 N. Halstead St.

Sweet Charity (review)

Spoilers ahoy! 

Not often performed anymore, Sweet Charity was maybe the first musical I recall listening to via eight-track (yep I am that old).  Watching the current production at the Jaxx Theatre on Santa Monica Blvd. felt...bittersweet.  Then joyous.  And I'll even say that by the end I felt glorious. 

Essentially the show, based on an Italian film, follows our title character Charity (Kasey Henz) in New York City, a charming and deeply naive--or maybe just eternally hopeful--dance hall hostess who keeps finding herself screwed over by life.  One of the first things we see happen is a boyfriend who mugs her, then tosses into a lake, with passers-by ultimately unsure about what to do.  Charity cannot swim, but finds ultimate rescue.  Barely.  Honestly any bare description makes her seem like a really severe door mat, yet--she isn't.  She is kind.  She remains hopeful.  She takes her life seriously, which includes the fact she tries to help others.  When she accidentally meets a big movie star (Brian Whisenant) who finds her utterly charming beyond words, Charity helps him re-unite with another woman she recognizes has this man's heart (Jill Marie Burke).  Later, stuck in an elevator with a handsome young man who promptly has a hilariously over-the-top panic attack when the elevator gets stuck, Charity successfully talks him down.  This is Oscar (Tom Sys), who falls in love with Charity within a cloud of total misunderstanding about who she is and what she does.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY Ren Shelburne

Now, each and every person in the cast does a very fine job, not only in terms of acting, singing, and dancing but the more subtle trick of maintaining the world of the show, a subtler and more vital skill than many might presume.  I really want to emphasize that.  In a marvelous ensemble, Sys is a standout, because in many ways he has the most difficult role.  The motion picture, which began Bob Fosse's career as a film director, frankly got the wrong note with this character, so he stuck out like a sore thumb, not at all fitting into the rest of the story.  Not in this production!  He was hilarious, human, different from absolutely everyone else yet fit into a world where characters burst into these songs and dances!

Thankfully I pretty much forgot about the movie while watching this version of Sweet Charity.  Not that the movie was at all bad!  Rather this was so totally itself!  Even when trying to capture the Fosse general style of choreography, it remained anything but a copy.  Performers like Amor Christiansen as Daddy, Aryiel Hartman as Madame Herman, and especially Ai Yamato and Natalie Reff as Charity's best pals at the dance hall, they made these roles their own and helped knock it out of the park.  Numbers like "Hey Big Spender!" "Rhymth of Life" "If They Could See Me Now" and "I Love To Cry at Weddings" all united in making a splendid show, full of passion and joy and fear and cynicism and pretty much an entire rainbow of human experience!

Which, it seems to be, is the whole point of the show.  So kudos not only to cast members Ellis Meng, Andrew Sear, J.D. Morabito, Charlotte Nevins, KiSea Katikka, Anna Gagliardo, Talor Bailey, Juliana DeSilva, Sofia Gutierrez and Genvieve Gray but also director/choreographer Jeremy Lucas and Music Director James Lent.  Frankly, I am now very eager to see each and every new show by this theatre group, so impressive was this show.

I will note that in over two hours of energy, showmanship, humor as well as genuine human feeling, the last thirty seconds of this script IMHO do not quite land.  And for all practical purposes that is the only criticism I have of the entire show.  Which is there, but I want to emphasize that is thirty seconds.  More important is the journey, not the destination.  Or at least so it seems to me.

Last time I had a chance to see a show by the Jaxx Theatre, my schedule did not allow it.  I am kicking myself for that now.  Hard! 

As of this writing, Sweet Charity has performances March 28 and 29, 2026 at The Jaxx Theatre is located at 5432 Santa Monica Blvd. in East Hollywood, 90029. Parking is available at 1110 N. Western Ave.