Quote of the Day (Arthur Miller, on the Tragedy of a Common Man)

“Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He's not the finest character that ever lived. But he's a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He's not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a person.”—Linda Loman on husband Willy, in American playwright Arthur Miller (1915-2005), Death of a Salesman (1949)

Attention surely has been paid since the first time that loving but long-suffering Linda Loman’s fiery cry rang through New York’s Morosco Theater, sixty years ago today, at the Broadway premiere of Arthur Miller’s most celebrated play, Death of a Salesman. 

Miller had already enjoyed success with All My Sons, but it was nothing compared with the rapturous reception he received this time, and not just because of the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award it received.

It’s said that even grown men wept at the fate of the woebegone salesman, whose psychological template the playwright had taken from his father, who had been crushed by the Great Depression.

One reason why the play ignited such powerful emotions was that Miller had taken the traditional concept of tragedy—a great man undone by a fatal flaw—and applied it to an ordinary man. Some critics wrote that the premise of ancient tragedy—the tremendous fall experienced by a mighty man—was thereby undercut. 

But there seems little doubt that Miller’s reconception of this theatrical mode made his play something with which ordinary viewers could easily identify.

Decades after Willy Loman lost his job, millions of Americans continue to struggle with diminished income, fractured family life, and loss of purpose when "terminated" from companies.

A burly character actor, Lee J. Cobb was still only in his late 30s when he played Willy Loman, the defining role of his career. Seventeen years later, he would replay the role, at a more appropriate age, on television.

In 1984, a revival of Miller’s play was mounted for Broadway, then broadcast again for TV the following year, with Dustin Hoffman offering a distinct reinterpretation—or, perhaps, it might be thought, a return to the original conception of the part. 

The playwright had thought of his protagonist, literally and symbolically, as a little man. Cobb, anything but small, was so electrifying that Miller rewrote a couple lines to accommodate that physical reality. Hoffman’s small stature allowed the playwright to see the role as he originally visualized it.

In 1999, I saw Brian Dennehy tackle the demanding role. Earlier that week, the burly actor had been rushed to the hospital, the result of both a physically and emotionally draining part as well as the actor’s frequent media appearances. The following Saturday, at a matinee, I saw him give his first performance since his brief hospitalization. 

At the conclusion of the play, the audience leaped to his feet when he took his curtain call, as appreciative of the particular strain he’d been under as of the powerful performance he’d been giving since the start of the show’s run.

Coincidentally, Miller died in 2005 on the 56th anniversary of the premiere. He had succeeded beyond what he ever imagined in bringing "attention" to the fate of a common man undone by his failure to realize the promise of the elusive American Dream.

(The image accompanying this post shows Mildred Dunnock, who not only played the role of Linda Loman at its 1949 premiere but also on film two years later and on television in 1966, reuniting her with Lee J. Cobb.)