He’s not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog. But he’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. He’s not the finest character that ever lived. “Willy Loman never made a lot of money,” she pleads, as much in anger as in sorrow.

Recognizing the tragic trajectory while it’s still unfolding, Linda exhorts her cynical son Biff - once the object of Willy’s pride, now a reflection of his failure - to stop tearing down his father before it’s too late. But the limited range helped drive home the limited options of his character, whose eagerness to win prevents him from seeing that he’s been playing the wrong game.Īs time catches up with Willy, the old salesman loses his job, his self-respect and, eventually, his life. Dennehy pounded the same note with different degrees of intensity. The power of the performance, as with much of the actor’s impressive body of work, didn’t derive from great variety. The bravado of the salesman, in Dennehy’s barreling rendition, couldn’t conceal the shame of a husband and father who fell agonizingly short of his own grandiose expectations. His Willy, a salesman aggressively trapped in a delusive way of thinking, would rather die a martyr than admit to being sold a bill of goods about success. How could it not be? As the pandemic lays waste to the economy, the play reminds us of the unchanging truth of an American dream dangled for the many but obtainable only by a ruthless few.ĭennehy, a prodigious actor drawn to prodigious roles, delivered a battering ram of a performance. Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” had been on my mind even before the death of Brian Dennehy, who won a Tony for his portrayal of Willy Loman in the 1999 Broadway revival.

Death of a salesman willy