Sean Hayes, classical pianist? Yep

 

     Fans of Sean Hayes associate him with comedy.  This is natural considering his 11 years playing Jack McFarland on the TV sitcom “Will and Grace.”  They won’t be surprised to hear his comic timing and delivery now on Broadway in Good Night, Oscar.  

     They might be surprised to see his dramatic chops as he plays pianist and intellectual wit Oscar Levant, a man who suffered from serious mental illness and drug addiction.  When he falls to the floor writhing in a breakdown several times during the 100-minute show Hayes brings us the tortured man behind the humor.

     But what is likely to be the bigger surprise for Hayes fans is that he is a classically trained pianist.  Portraying Levant performing on “The Tonight Show,” he sits down at the piano and plays a seven-minute excerpt from George Gershwin’s challenging “Rhapsody in Blue.”  The audience at the Belasco Theatre went wild.

     I was right with them because I love that piece and because it’s a joy to see these unexpected gifts from an actor I had only seen in “Promises, Promises” and “An Act of God” on Broadway.

     Under the direction of Lisa Peterson, Doug Wright’s play is an encapsulated story of the man whose gifts and demons fought each other for control of his life.  Levant was widely regarded for his interpretation of Gershwin’s music.  He also appeared in the film “An American in Paris” and frequented TV talk shows where he joked about his mental health struggles and drug addiction.

     Set in spring 1958 in an NBC studio in Burbank, CA, the play centers around the first night of host Jack Paar’s (Ben Rappaport) “Tonight Show” in Los Angeles.  He reluctantly agreed to relocate from New York after NBC president Bob Sarnoff (Peter Grosz) offered him wide freedom to select his guests.  

     This sets the scene for some delightful commentary about New York vs. Los Angeles.  When Paar reminds his boss that he’s had to leave behind “those late-night sophisticates back in New York,” Sarnoff tells him Los Angeles audiences “can be very discriminating.” To which Paar replied, “Sure they discriminate.  Against talent.  Against intelligence.”  He calls L.A. “the one city in the world where a good tan beats a college education.” 

     All of this takes place backstage in Paar’s office, with Rachel Hauck’s sets offering the appropriately bland, low-key look of the late 1950s.  Paar and Sarnoff are sparing over the host’s insistence that Levant be his lead guest for this first West Coast show.  Sarnoff worries about Levant’s dependability in terms of showing up and then keeping his sharp commentary in line with censor and sponsor expectations.  He wants to replace him with Xavier Cugat, “the King of the Rhumba,” who is in town appearing at the Coconut Grove.  No way will Paar agree to that switch for his L.A. premiere. 

     What neither man knows until Levant’s wife June (Emily Bergl) shows up is that she has had him committed to a psychiatric unit and had only now learned he had been scheduled for Paar’s big night.  That’s all Sarnoff needs to hear for him to head for the phone to call Cugat.  But Paar, concerned about his ratings and unconcerned about his friend’s mental health, convinces June to get her husband released on a four-hour pass.  

     Levant’s appearance on the live show, high on pills he had gotten with the help of a studio flunky (Alex Wyse), proves both men right.  Prompted by Paar Levant goes full dagger on the three topics he promised to avoid – political, sex and religion.  The religious joke, involving Marilyn Monroe’s conversion to Judaism following her marriage to Arthur Miller, would probably shock some people today but in the Eisenhower era it brings immediate calls of protest from the Legion of Decency, Cardinal Spellman, and the National Office of the Parent/Teacher Association.  The Methodist church members in the audience and others have left plenty of empty seats in the studio by the time the commercial break ends.

     Sarnoff is now ready to send Levant packing but Paar remains determined to have him perform anything, even “Chopsticks,” just to get him at the piano.  Throughout his time at the studio, and even more at the thought of playing, Levant has been having imaginary conversations with Gershwin (John Zdrojeski), his former friend and idol, and the man whose genius he thinks he has failed to achieve.  These lead to his breakdowns on the floor.  

     Paar wins, though, and the drug-addled Levant staggers to the piano only to brilliantly perform “Rhapsody.” 

     Good Night, Oscar is one of the best shows of the season.  The play is strong and Hayes is dynamic.  It gets my highest recommendation. 

'Camelot' has returned to Broadway after 63 years

 

     I had been looking forward to Camelot since I learned it was coming to Lincoln Center this spring.  I’ve loved the original cast recording most of my life but I’ve never seen the show, just the movie version when I was in elementary school.

     Director Bartlett Sher brought lavish revivals of two other Golden Age musicals, South Pacific and The King and I, to Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theatre and I expected another in the first Broadway revival of this Lerner and Loewe classic retelling of the Arthurian legend, which opened on Broadway 63 years ago.  Unfortunately I was disappointed, largely because of set designer Michael Yeargan’s decision to present the entire almost three-hour musical on a nearly bare stage.  Even though the show has a 27-person cast and 30-piece orchestra I felt I was watching a concert version.  The actors came on to sing those lovely songs but I felt distanced from the story.

     I was also distracted by the humor throughout.  Having never seen the stage show I don’t know if that was a part of the original or if that is particular to Aaron Sorkin’s book adaptation.  I didn’t like it.  I wasn’t prepared for a musical comedy, much as I might like them in other cases.  It had the feel of television, which makes sense because Sorkin is the creator of the hit TV show “The West Wing.”  

     But he is also a man of the theatre, having made his Broadway debut with his play “A Few Good Men.”  More recently he adapted the book for another classic, To Kill a Mockingbird.  His interpretation greatly strengthened that story.  He did improve Camelot’s book in some ways, such as by taking out the supernatural elements.  I wish he had taken away more.  The show is too long.  I was thrilled to hear the final lines, “Each evening from December to December,” movingly delivered by Andrew Burnap as King Arthur.  Thrilled because they are so touching but also because it meant the show was ending.  Cut more Mr. Sorkin.  I heard other audience members complaining about the length as well.

     The songs, however, do not disappoint.  My heart soared right from the first notes of the overture (music director, Kimberly Grigsby).  “Camelot,” “The Lusty Month of May,” “How to Handle a Woman,” “Before I Gaze at You Again” and “If Ever I Would Leave You” are brought to us with perfection by Burnap, Phillipa Soo as Guenevere and Jordan Donica as Lancelot.  

     Soo is one of my favorite musical theatre performers.  I saw her in her first show right out of school, when she starred as Natasha in Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 off-off-Broadway.  I couldn’t take my eyes off of her.  She played young and vulnerable beautifully and I loved her expressive face.  I listen now to her exquisite voice on the cast recording of Hamilton, in which she played Eliza.   

     She was the perfect Guenevere, whether frolicking around the Maypole (choreography by Byron Easley) in a pink dress (costumes by Jennifer Moeller) or in my favorite scene, the one when she’s leaving Arthur.  She tells him she loves him and by the way she hugs him deeply it is clear that she does.  It’s heartbreaking because they do love each other, except for her it’s not enough to keep her from running off with Lancelot. 

     I wish I could have been that moved by the rest of the show.  The bare stage technique doesn’t have to be distancing.  It works effectively in the current revival of A Doll’s House.  For me it put all the attention on the play and I was involved throughout.  In Camelot it distanced me from the story.  

The 'Parade' revival is all too timely

 

     On the first night of previews for the Broadway revival of Jason Robert Brown’s musical Parade, members of one of the country’s largest antisemitic groups protested this show about one of the country’s most hideous examples of antisemitism, the trial and subsequent lynching of Leo Frank.  2023 and 1913.  New York and Atlanta.  Will this hatred ever stop?

     Frank was a Brooklyn-born Jew who moved to the South after marrying an Atlanta woman whose uncle, the owner of the National Pencil Company, gave him a job as superintendent.  On the day the city was holding its Memorial Day parade – Leo in the musical (Ben Platt) finds it astonishing that they celebrate the day they lost the war – the body of 13-year-old factory worker Mary Phagan was found raped and murdered in the basement.  With no evidence of Leo’s guilt but plenty pointing toward the Black handyman, the unscrupulously ambitious district attorney fabricated a case against Frank that assured a guilty verdict.  He had political ambitions and knew how to play to voters who want “to sing Dixie once again,” as the memorable opening song, “The Old Red Hills of Home,” says.  They would rather blame a northern Jew than a Black southerner. 

     The modern-day protestors outside the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre told ticket holders they were seeing a show about a pedophile.  Even now they won’t acknowledge the injustice done to Frank. 

     Although it seems an unlikely plot for a Broadway musical, this 1998 show has what good drama needs, the power to shock and move its audience.  I saw the original and was blown away.  I had known the story since I was in my 20s.  Brown’s songs (music and lyrics, for which he won a Tony in 1999) and Alfred Uhry’s Tony Award-winning book bring it to life in a way I couldn’t have imagined.

     Micaela Diamond, who made her Broadway debut as Babe, the youngest Cher in The Cher Show, movingly portrays Lucille, Leo’s wife, in this revival directed by Michael Arden.  They have strong voices and play well together but they didn’t engage me the way the original players, Brent Carver and Carolee Carmello, did, but maybe that’s because nothing can replace seeing this powerful show for the first time.

     Dane Laffrey’s set was a bit off-putting, a giant dais on which most of the scenes take place.  It made the action seem distant to me.  I liked Susan Hilferty’s period costumes and Heather Gilbert’s brooding lighting. 

     Erin Rose Doyle is a sweet Mary and Paul Alexander Nolan embodies the ruthless district attorney, Hugh Dorsey, who uses his guilty verdict to propel him into the governorship.  The election is two years after Leo’s conviction.  Leo has remained in jail, filing appeal after appeal, which were all unsuccessful.  During that time pressure has been put on Governor Slaton (Sean Allan Krill) by elected officials around the country, as well as influential individuals like Henry Ford, to reconsider the case.  Lucille is the strongest fighter for this cause, working with Slaton to reveal Dorsey’s manipulation of the case, which included coaching Mary’s young co-workers to say Frank had sexually harassed them.  

     Slaton assures his opponent’s victory when he becomes the one honorable player in the Frank tragedy.  With Leo’s execution five weeks away, Slaton commutes his sentence to life in prison, delivering what to me are the play’s most memorable lines: “Two thousand years ago another governor washed his hands and turned a Jew over to a mob.  Ever since then that governor’s name has been a curse.  If today another Jew went to his grave because I failed to do my duty, I would all my life find his blood on my hands.”

     This gives Leo and Lucille hope and they share the beautiful duet “This Is Not Over Yet.”  I don’t think, since this is such a historic case, that it’s a spoiler alert to say their joy is short-lived.  A mob invaded the prison, took Leo to a remote location and hung him.

     Cast members all appear to be giving 100 percent to tell this story, which, sadly, is far too timely.  As for poor Leo Frank, a projection on the dais says his case was reopened by the Fulton County district attorney’s office in 2019.  It is still ongoing.  And so is the tragedy.

Maureen McGovern: Creating hope in life with dementia

 

Maureen McGovern was a 23-year-old folk singer in 1972 when she was chosen to record “The Morning After” for The Poseidon Adventure.  The song and movie became megahits and launched her four-decade career as a concert performer, recording artist and Broadway musical theatre actress. All of that changed several years ago when she was diagnosed with posterior cortical atrophy and symptoms of Alzheimer’s and/or dementia. It hasn’t stopped her from singing, though, and she continues her efforts to bring joy to others.  She spoke by Zoom with a writer for Alzheimer’s TODAY about her life back home in Ohio and the projects she has planned.

 

How did your diagnosis come about?  Were you experiencing symptoms and decided to check them out?

For five or six or more years before it was little things. “I know this song. Why did I forget the words?” I made a joke out of it in shows. It kept building.

Have you/how have you adjusted to the diagnosis?

I moved to an independent senior residence. I had to get rid of so much. I didn’t want to let go. It was hard and frustrating to leave the place where I had been.

Now I am grateful for where I am. I live on the fifth floor with a great view. There’s a 90-year-old man here who plays the piano. A couple of times a year he’ll play, and I’ll sing. It’s been hard to adjust but I’m more comfortable now. At least knowing where I am as far as the sickness. I know many people are going through this, too. I want to write a book.

I read that you can no longer travel or perform in concerts. Can you sing and do you?

I sing a lot in my apartment to keep the pipes in order. The neighbors are very happy. I have large cards with all the words on them.

I’ve actually sung in many, many hospices. That’s always been a part of my heart. There was a grandmother in her last moments. I thought, “Oh, my God, what can I do to help her?” You could feel the sadness in everybody’s heart. The kids said she liked country music, so I did a little ditty for her. I got to a certain point and we heard a soft “whoo, whoo, whoo” sound. The beauty of that. The children and family were crying tears of joy. A simple thing like that is wonderful. I understand people even more now.   

I sang in a women’s prison. A woman sent me a letter to say I changed her life. For that moment – they are stuck in coops over there – they light up like candles.

What is your biggest challenge?

Not knowing exactly what is in the future. I try to see every day as a gift and keep moving on and trying to help other people.

Are you still writing children’s music?

I’m writing some. I had done that years ago and there’s stuff I haven’t dealt with in a while. I want to do that.

What else are you working on now?

Through the years I performed for charities. That kept me going. I miss doing that. I’d like to do more. I worked for the Muscular Dystrophy Association for three decades and HIV-AIDS and the American Music Therapy Association.

I’m talking to my music conductor, Jeff Harris. I want to record inspirational songs. I can’t wait to make a recording in the studio. I’ve been in the house so long. Maybe it will do some good.

You said you will be working to bring more attention to music therapy. How are you doing this?

When children are in a funk you just start music and they just lift up their souls. That’s what I’d like to bring them.

In 1972, on Christmas Eve – I’d done a concert the day before – I was asked to stay and go to a hospital. I thought, “That will be fun.” Kids were in cribs. The babies didn’t know anything about me but the parents needed that so badly. They came and hugged me. Something as innocent as that can change somebody for even a moment.

I want to become helpful any way I can. That’s what I’m looking forward to, that kind of thing. I may not be able to do this or that, but I know how to deal with this the best I can, when I can make someone else happy.

You said you slowly realized that your inner life has not changed, that Alzheimer’s/dementia is not going to stop you from living your life.  What does this mean for you now? What do you mean by “inner life”?

What we keep inside, above the chest. Your soul. I keep things with me. I try to remember things that were very important to me and I’m always trying to fix somebody else in their dilemma. I know all that’s still inside me.

My interview with Maureen McGovern appears in the March cover story for Alzheimer’s TODAY magazine.

 

Jessica Chastain is spectacular in 'A Doll's House'

      If you want to test the power of a well-written play, strip away practically everything except the words.  That's what director Jamie Lloyd has done with A Doll's House at the Hudson Theatre.  The result: the play was as compelling for me as when I first read it in college.  That's because Lloyd has focused on the most important theatrical element, the players.  Jessica Chastain as Nora heads the exceptional cast for this Broadway revival of Ibsen's 1879 classic story of a woman's journey to self-realization.  

     From the moment you enter the theatre, the austerity is apparent.  Scenic designer Sutra Gilmour’s stage is bare except for a few light wood straight chairs.  Moody, pulsing music by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto creates an air of anticipation.  About 15 minutes before the start of the show Chastain walks out to sit as a turntable slowly revolves her around the stage.  Her expression is pondering, looking off into the distance.  Her long copper-colored hair is pulled back and her clothes are contemporary, a long black dress with three-quarter length sleeves (costume design by Gilmour and Enver Chakartash).  She will rarely leave that chair for the entire nearly two-hour intermission-less show, except most dramatically when her fevered dance for her husband, which she has been doing seated, pitches her to the floor. 

     The next indication that this production will be different is the opening conversation between the two main characters, Nora, the sheltered Norwegian wife, and her doting and controlling husband, Torvald (Arian Moayed).  Unlike in traditional interpretations in which Torvald is condescending and Nora childish, these two converse more like equal partners, parents of three small children who are sharing the joy of Torvald’s promotion at the bank and their relief from financial strain.  Chastain’s Nora is happy and confident, and more mature than how she is usually portrayed.  They could be a couple from today rather than the late 19th century.  Playwright Amy Herzog wrote this modernized adaptation.  As the evening progresses, though, the two will revert to the characters with whom we are more familiar, 

     Convention is turned on its head even more in further interactions, most notably when Nora is threatened with exposure by Krogstad (Okieriete Onaodowan, in photo), an underhanded bank employee Torvald is on the verge of firing.  He makes it clear he will expose the crime Nora committed to get money to pay for medical treatment for Torvald if she does not persuade Torvald to keep him on. 

     Rather than confront each other face to face, Lloyd has them seated with their backs to each other.  Emotional expression is kept low-key with little variation, as it is throughout the show.  The actors’ words are crystal clear, spoken out to open space rather than each other.  With no sets, costumes, props or physical encounters, the dialogue rules.  It was like a radio play in which we are forced to listen carefully because that’s all we have.  I was involved the entire time.

     The unconventionality is in place right up to the final scene.  With no door to close firmly behind her, Nora exits through a panel that opens in the back wall, heading into the world beyond, leaving her family behind.

     When classics are drastically reinterpreted like this I often feel that someone encountering them for the first time won’t be getting a true sense of the play but I didn’t feel that way this time.  We don’t need the simple Norwegian living room and Victorian costumes.  We’ve got the story, powerfully intact.

Neil Diamond is the subject of Broadway's latest jukebox musical

 

     Usually the weakest element in a jukebox musical is the book.  While not great, Anthony McCarten’s book for A Beautiful Noise is serviceable, especially in the first act.  The weakest element is Steven Hoggett’s choreography (more about that later).  Unfortunately for this latest offering in the genre, which features the music of Neil Diamond, the one part of any show that absolutely must be strong, the lead character, misses the mark.  Will Swenson, Broadway veteran that he is, never fully embodies the superstar he is portraying at the Broadhurst Theatre.   

     This is most obvious in the second act when the songwriter from Flatbush, Brooklyn, has become a megastar, filling stadiums and arenas as the biggest box office draw in the world, knocking Elvis out of that distinction.  Swenson’s voice has the intonation and strength of Diamond’s but he lacks the magnetism of performance that filled those venues for decades.  I was always aware he was an actor playing a part rather than becoming the star the way Myles Frost transforms into Michael Jackson in MJ.

     Maybe this is because Frost grew up emulating Jackson and spent years perfecting Jackson’s moves and voice.  Swenson also grew up with an awareness of the pop star he is portraying, but it was his father who love Diamond.  “My dad liked Neil so much that there was a picture of him hanging up in our garage,” he said in an interview with Playbill.  “He was always playing Neil on a loop; he never took that tape out of his car.”

     But while Diamond’s infectious tunes were the soundtrack of Swenson’s childhood, the singer was his father’s idol, not his.  It was dad music.  He knows the songs but doesn’t have the presence.

     The show opens with an aged and reluctant Diamond (Mark Jacoby) sitting stubbornly quiet in the office of the psychologist (Linda Powell) his third wife, Katie (unseen), and children nudged him to meet with for his depression, which we learn as the story unfolds was something he lived with throughout his life.  The nameless therapist knows he’s famous but seems to have never heard of him, which is hard to believe.  If she was expecting a new patient who was famous don't you think she would have Googled him to get to know a bit about him?  In an effort to draw him out she buys a book of his lyrics and is excited that she knows one of the songs —he wrote nearly 100.  Maybe that was supposed to be funny but I thought it was silly.  But her approach works as Diamond opens up about what those songs meant to him.

     “When I hit that first cord, the clouds lift.”

     I like the device McCarten uses to launch the heart of the story, which is certainly an interesting one.  He has the therapist pick one song each session to talk about.  It’s a good way to bring the songs into the show and unpack Diamond’s past.  Unfortunately director Michael Mayer brings on a herd of young dancers to accompany each song.  Clad in colorful play clothes that give a suggestion of the 1960s (costumes by Emilio Sosa), they bop around the stage like a bunch of hyperactive amebas, with every dance number looking the same.  They are annoying. 

     We learn that Diamond, this man who could sell out stadiums, set out to be a songwriter rather than a performer.  He sold his first song at 15 and his first hit, “I’m a Believer,” was a chart topper for the Monkees. 

     It is Ellie Greenwich (Bri Sudia), a powerful producer in the Brill Building, who discovers what would be Diamond’s ultimate path.  She had been assigning his songs — “The Boat That I Row,” “Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow), “Red, Red, Wine” —to singers until one day Diamond interrupts one young man, played by Max Sangerman, as he sings “Kentucky Woman.”  Diamond suggests a different interpretation.  Greenwich realizes that he is the one who should be singing his songs and coaxes him into an appearance at the Village’s Bitter End cafe.  He’s frightened at first but warms up as he sings “Solitary Man,” magnetizing the audience.  The elder Diamond tells his therapist, “It was the first time I ever really felt alive.” He returns until the inevitable record contracts and large engagements follow.

     In these Act One scenes Swenson as the insecure Diamond is believable.  It’s in Act Two with Diamond clad in sequined suits singing to thousands that he loses the character.  

     All of this is to say that while the show could have been better I still enjoyed it.  I never owned any of Diamond’s records but I’ve listened to his songs on the radio since I was in elementary school.  It’s been years now, if not decades, since I heard them because I listen almost exclusively to jazz and country/folk/Americana on WAER from Syracuse University.  I enjoyed reconnecting with “America,””Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show,” “Cherry, Cherry,” “Cracklin’ Rosie” “Forever in Blue Jeans,” “Holly Holy,” “I Am. . .I Said” and “Shilo,” among others.  

     Not to be forgotten, of course, is “Sweet Caroline,” which lit up the audience as the Act One closer and had us on our feet clapping and singing along at the curtain call.  That was fun.  

     So it goes for another jukebox musical on Broadway.  

All-Black cast energizes 'Death of a Salesman'

 

     I was unprepared for the emotional impact director Miranda Cromwell’s revival of Death of a Salesman would have on me.  I haven't felt so moved since the first time I saw this Arthur Miller classic when I was 17 and went into it cold.

     Willy's death shook me deeply then and it did again yesterday thanks to Wendell Pierce’s powerful, fully human performance.  But I grieved for another character as well this time, Linda, Willy's devoted wife.  As portrayed by Sharon D. Clarke this Linda is a woman of our time, a feminist Linda who isn’t diminished by Willy's temper and insults.  

     Linda has always come off to me as a servile, 1950s TV wife with a “Yes, dear” attitude who cowered under Willy's verbal abuse.  When Willy yells at Clarke’s Linda to be quiet she stops talking but her gestures and expressions say plenty.  She’s no doormat.  She’s Willy’s equal and when she tells her sons she loves him I had no doubt.  In the past I’ve thought she was just kidding herself.

     This revival, at the Hudson Theatre, is the first time the 1949 play has been done on Broadway with an all-Black cast.  Broadway lags way behind Baltimore’s Center Stage in that regard.  The 1972 production I saw was the first time Salesman had been done by an all-Black professional cast in this country.  Miller came to the opening.  In a program note he wrote: “I have felt for many years that particularly with this play, which has been so well received in so many countries and cultures, that the black actor would have an opportunity, if that is needed anymore, to demonstrate all his common humanity and his talent.”  Obviously it was still needed because it took 50 years for it to happen on Broadway. 

     I’ve seen the play at least three other times — in 1983 at Syracuse Stage and the Broadway revivals in 1999 and 2012, with all white casts, of course, and I’ve read it I don’t know how many times through my three degrees in English.  Because of that I was reluctant to see it again.  I thought its power to move me was long gone and I went only as a dutiful Drama Desk voter.  I’m glad I did.  By the end, the graveside scene was so painful I was in tears.  Linda said she couldn’t cry but couldn’t not.  

     Adding to the emotion of the scene was a gospel recording that began to play quietly and was picked up by Linda singing “When We Meet Again When the Trumpets Sound.”  What a gut punch.  

     This gave a familiar classic a new take.  Clarke’s performance and Cromwell’s direction made the play a story of a husband and wife, a marriage, instead of the father/son story I had always been left with.

     Which leads me to the sons, Biff (Khris Davis) and Happy (McKinley Belcher III).  I’ve never had much sympathy for either of them except when I saw Kevin Anderson’s portrayal in the 1999 Broadway revival.  I did care about his Biff.  With these two I wanted to bash their heads together. 

     Andre De Shields portrays Ben, Willy’s older brother, who proudly tells Willy,  “William, when I walked into the jungle, I was 17.  When I walked out I was 21.  And, by God, I was rich!”  He is authoritative, almost kingly, pumped up with his own self-importance, making it easy to understand how he makes Willy feel he can’t measure up.  He’s also a bit scary when he’s the ghost of himself who plays out in Willy’s troubled mind.

     Scenic designer Anna Fleischle leaves the stage largely bare, which is effective in focusing on the drama of the play.  Furniture and window frames that are suspended from the ceiling go up and down as needed. Jen Schriever’s lighting design is dark and shadowy, in keeping with the mood.  

     This production was originally directed by Marianne Elliott and Miranda Cromwell at the Young Vic Theatre in London, and subsequently at the Piccadilly Theatre in London in 2019.    This Broadway production proves that attention must still be paid to Willy Loman and Miller’s enduring play.