A Dramatic Reading of Death of a Salesman Arthur Miller Playwright with Alec Baldwin and members of the U-M Department of Theatre & Drama Daniel Cantor Director Death of a Salesman is presented by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Inc., New York Saturday Evening, September 29, 2018 at 8:00 Power Center Ann Arbor Third Performance of the 140th Annual Season CAST Willy Loman / Alec Baldwin Linda / Priscilla Lindsay Charley / Leigh Woods Uncle Ben / Alex Leydenfrost Happy / Nico Dangla* Biff / Jack Alberts* Bernard / Ted Gibson* The Woman / Juliana Tassos* Howard Wagner / Jackson Verolini* Stanley / AJ D’Ambrosio* Miss Forsythe / Lolly Duus* Letta / Georgia Spears* Stage Directions and Narration / Eva Rosenwald Understudy, Willy Loman / Tommy A. Gomez CREATIVE TEAM Director / Daniel Cantor Assistant Director / Marty McGuire* Stage Manager / Sam Schoenfeld* Assistant Stage Manager / Blake Griffey Dramaturg / Skylar Siben* * Student from the U-M School of Music, Theatre & Dance This evening’s performance is approximately three hours in duration and will be performed with one intermission. UMS Student Experiences, including opportunities for students to learn from and perform with professional artists, are made possible through a generous leadership gift from UMS National Council Co-Chair Rachel Bendit (U-M BA ’97) and U-M Regent Mark Bernstein (U-M BA ’93, JD/MBA ’96). Media partnership provided by WEMU 89.1 FM, Michigan Radio 91.7 FM, WDET 101.9 FM, and Ann Arbor’s 107one. Special thanks to Enoch Brater, Daniel Cantor, Paul Feeny, Jennifer Knapp, Priscilla Lindsay, and Shannon Rice for their participation in events surrounding this evening’s performance. In consideration of the artists and the audience, please refrain from the use of electronic devices during the performance. The photography, sound recording, or videotaping of this performance is prohibited. 3 SYNOPSIS Willy Loman, an aging and tired meeting with his contact, but the boys salesman, returns to his wife Linda abandon Willy at the restaurant and in their Brooklyn home after an depart with women they’ve just met. unsuccessful attempt to complete So many things haven’t gone right his drive to New England — his for Willy over his life. He passed up territory. Willy clings to delusions and the chance to follow his brother Ben memories, while Linda supports him to Africa, where Ben made his fortune. and tries to make ends meet from his Biff’s adoration for his father was meager commissions. She worries rocked to its core when he showed every day about the suicide attempts up unexpectedly at Willy’s Boston that he’s made. hotel room and made a discovery that His son Biff’s arrival brings destroyed Biff’s faith in him. conflicting emotions: disappointment Willy returns home humiliated, and at his son’s failure to “find himself” Linda, furious, tells their sons to get and hope that the one-time football out of their father’s life. Biff and Willy hero will find success. Biff and his have one final fight that leaves Willy brother Happy are concerned with touched with his son’s love. The best the man they find at home. Willy has way to provide for his success, Willy crashed his car several times and finally determines, is the life insurance has long conversations with his long- policy he’s been dutifully making deceased brother Ben. Linda remains payments on for years. devoted to her husband and chastises Willy Loman’s tragedy is complete her boys for not recognizing the worth and his funeral largely ignored. In of their father. After 36 years with Linda’s tearful goodbye, she tells Willy the company, Willy has had his salary that the last payment was made on their taken away, as his ability to make the house that day — they’re finally free. sales pales in comparison to what he accomplished decades earlier when Reprinted courtesy of Trinity Repertory he opened up entire new territories Company. for the company. Biff tries to make his father proud by seeking out funding from an old boss so that he can make his own success. Biff and Happy plan a dinner with Willy to celebrate, but the dinner ends in disaster. Earlier that day, Willy meets with his boss Howard, trying to convince him to allow Willy to sell locally instead of traveling throughout New England. Instead, Willy is fired, but he still holds out hope for his son’s success. However, not only has Biff not even been able to get a 5 DEATH OF A SALESMAN by Enoch Brater In 1949, Arthur Miller took the train by the oddest thing of all: “men and Death of a Salesman was a huge from Penn Station in New York to women wept openly” and, after the critical and box-office success when Philadelphia for the tryout of a strange applause died down, “members of the it opened in New York at the Morosco new play he had originally thought of audience refused to leave and started Theatre on February 10, 1949. The play calling The Inside of His Head. From talking to complete strangers about won a Pulitzer Prize, a Tony Award, early on, the work seemed to demand how deeply they had been affected by and Miller’s second award from the a stage solution as difficult as it the play.” Miller, who thought he had New York Drama Critics’ Circle. The was elusive: how to render the past, written a tough, hard-hitting exposé playwright was only 35 years old. the present, and the protagonist’s of the dangerous and deceptive myth increasingly desperate imagination of “making it in America,” was entirely Excerpted from Arthur Miller: as one continuous whole, without unprepared for the emotional punch A Playwright’s Life and Works (Thames resorting to “flashbacks” (a term the Salesman delivered in performance. and Hudson, 2005). Enoch Brater is the playwright disliked) or the clumsy His play had all at once found a life of Kenneth T. Rowe Collegiate Professor apparatus of frequent and intrusive its own. of Dramatic Literature and professor of scene breaks. The drama would be When Willy Loman, suitcase in hand, English and theater at the University of realistic, of course, but it presupposed slowly walks onto the set of Death of Michigan. a realism with a difference. a Salesman in one of the most famous No one involved in the original stage entrances in theater history, he production of Death of a Salesman, begins the long requiem that finally least of all the playwright, was sure declares itself as such in the closing that the gamble would work. The moments of the play. The work, Miller producer Kermit Bloomgarden, said, “is written from the sidewalk one of the play’s principal backers, instead of from a skyscraper.” recommended a different title for the Unlike Willy’s sons, the audience play. Convinced that no one would hardly needs to wait for Linda’s buy a ticket to a show with “death” pronouncement to understand that advertised on the marquee, he “the man is exhausted. A small man suggested Free and Clear, highlighting can be just as tired as a great man.” Linda’s monologue in the Requiem, Miller’s proletarian spirit permeates which brings closure to the play. the entire play: Willy Loman, the “The work I wrote is called Death of a salesman working on commissions Salesman,” the playwright is reported that never come, is down on his luck to have said. When the curtain came (not that he ever really had any); down on the first performance at Happy, who talks big, is the perpetual the Locust Theatre in Philadelphia, assistant to an assistant; Biff, who followed by too many moments of (unlike his father) knows he’s “a dime awkward silence, the tension, as Miller a dozen,” is the aging, fair-haired boy relates in his autobiography, was long gone to seed; while Linda, the palpable and real. A lot was at stake, homebody ignored by time, is unable not only for Miller, but “for the future to stem the tide of tragedy that soon of the American theater.” There was, engulfs them all, try as she might. finally, thunderous applause, followed 6 7 ARTISTS Since 1980, Alec Baldwin (Willy Loman) New York Philharmonic, and he is also the Theatre, and National Shakespeare Alex Leydenfrost (Uncle Ben) is a resident has appeared in numerous productions on radio announcer for the Philharmonic. Company. TV and film work includes artist at the Purple Rose Theatre Company stage, in films, and on television. He has With his wife, Hilaria Thomas Baldwin, Empire, Chicago PD, Law & Order, Law & (PRTC). His PRTC credits include Wake, received a Tony nomination (A Streetcar he maintains The Hilaria and Alec Baldwin Order: Special Victims Unit, Law & Order: Gravity (as Sir Isaac Newton), Best of Named Desire, 1992), an Oscar nomination Foundation, supporting numerous causes, Criminal Intent, Conviction, The Sopranos, Friends, Some Couples May…, White (The Cooler, 2004), and has won three primarily in the arts. He is the author As the World Turns, Loving, Asphalt Man Buffalo, Superior Donuts, Redwood Curtain, Emmy Awards, three Golden Globes, and of three books: A Promise To Ourselves (Korea), Miskits, The Auteur Theory, and Vino Veritas. Other Michigan stage seven consecutive Screen Actors Guild (his critique of the California family law Alchemy, Justice, House of Satisfaction, and appearances include The Impossibility Awards as “Best Actor in a Comedy Series” system), his memoir Nevertheless, and, Alternative Universe: A Rescue Mission. of Now (Tipping Point), Good People for his role on NBC-TV’s 30 Rock. He has along with Kurt Andersen, a Trump parody As a director, Mr.