Newport Playgoers are turning to the legendary playwright Arthur Miller for their next production which takes to the Dolman Theatre stage in April, 2019.
Death of a Salesman won both the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Tony Award for Best Play and 70 years on is set to grab the attention of a contemporary audience. Death of a Salesman, became one of the most famous American plays of its period. It is the tragedy of Willy Loman, a man destroyed by false values that are in large part the values of his society. For Miller, it was important to place “the common man” at the centre of a tragedy
The play follows Willy Loman, a man at the end of his life, and he’s looking back in rancour, living a final 48 hours in a fug of dreams and tortured reality. But his fears are universal and his demise is potential.
Willy’s life is also punctured by an overwhelming sense of abandonment and the toxic combination of hopelessness, loneliness and narcissism. Willy delivers this emotional panorama in magnificent spasms, like a punch to the gut, turning back in a flash to such aching vulnerability that we forgive him his bullying and his self-destructive pride. His face is impassive but his fingers twitch with undisguised nervousness. He needs validation. Being liked is his sole purpose, something todays social media generation can identify with.
Directing Death of A Salesman is Steve Bissex-Williams, a member of Newport Playgoers Society since 1974, who has trained at the Royal Welsh College of Music and directed for Newport Playgoers, Newport Operatic Society, Cwmbran Operatic Society and New Venture Players.
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Newport Playgoers Society presentation of Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller runs at The Dolman Theatre, Newport from April 9-12 at 7.15pm each evening with a matinee performance on April 13 at 2.30pm. Visit dolmantheatre.co.uk for ticket details.