On Friday, Mer and I chaperoned her English classes to Actors’ Summit Theater’s production of Death of a Salesman. I was really excited – I had never gotten to see the play live; I had seen the movie version with Dustin Hoffman, which is excellent, but even that was years ago. Actors’ Summit has always done a good job, so I knew it would be a fine production.
The kids were great. CVCA has good kids, and taking the Honors and AP English students to a play is like letting me tour a whoopie pie factory – they want to be there. The theater is small to start with (the farthest back you can be is six rows), and the only classes there were us and one small class from another school that was made up of kids who were doing theater. We were told after the play that we were a great audience, and the Artistic Directors told that to me and Mer again after the kids were going for lunch. What a delight to share theater with English nerds! 
The play was stunning. All of the actors did a superb job, and Neil, the actor playing Willie Loman was amazing. He switched complex emotions on and off in the space of seconds. This play was just overwhelming – it was a look at a complex character who was falling apart, and the family that was falling apart around him. Miller managed to create a lead character that was very flawed, was delusional, was abusive, and yet created real pathos for the character of Willie Loman. I was choked up several times during the play, and it is not like I can relate to the kinds of relationships that were being shown. Yet, somehow, Miller still got to me.
The play had one intermission – this was the first play I had been to where almost no one applauded at intermission, and yet everyone had been sucked into the play. I think it was an emotional equivalent of shell shock. I apologized to one of the Artistic Directors, and she indicated that she was fine with that reaction. Neil later told me that almost all of the audiences react that way – no applause at intermission.
What a great production. If you are in NE Ohio, check it out – Death of a Salesman plays through next week (through March 4th).