Okay Mr Miller, I'll buy it (Filed: 17/05/2005)

 

Charles Spencer reviews Death of a Salesman at the Lyric Theatre, London

There is something reassuring about clinging to your prejudices. For years I have taken a fierce negative joy in my belief that Arthur Miller is the most overrated of 20th century dramatists.

Dennehy: a walking wounded example that the bigger they come, the harder they fall

He is revered by the Liberal-Left as the great chronicler of the dark side of the American Dream, admired for his courage in refusing to name names before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Many of the obituaries after his death earlier this year might have been describing a secular saint. So if you suggest that this self-proclaimed "impatient moralist" can often be a windy, self-righteous bore, the reaction is usually one of gratifying outrage.

But watching the magnificent production that opened last night on Shaftesbury Avenue, even a doubting Thomas like me was left in no doubt that I was in the presence of a masterpiece.

Though the show lasts considerably longer than three hours, there is not a moment when one isn't moved, gripped, and at times appalled by the sheer raging pain on stage. Not a performance rings false, not a word seems superfluous to requirements. You leave the theatre in no doubt that you have witnessed a great, possibly THE great, American tragedy.

Willy Loman, the failed travelling salesman, who has spent his life "riding on a smile and a shoeshine" and buying into the mendacious dream that success is all that really matters, is a character who has long since achieved almost mythical status.

But in Brian Dennehy's towering, Tony-award winning performance, you seem to be meeting him for the first time. I'd always pictured Loman as a wizened little fellow. Dennehy is a great bear of a man, which makes his stooped shoulders, mental confusion, and sudden moments of raging anger and grief all the more moving. He is a walking wounded example of the cruel truth that the bigger they come, the harder they fall.

Like so many of the greatest American plays, Death of a Salesman explores the consolation and the dangers of living a lie. Loman can only be happy when he is living in rose-tinted memories of his family's past, and kidding himself that he is still a hotshot on the road. When forcibly confronted with reality, Dennehy shrinks and crumples before our eyes, while his howls of anguish send shivers racing down the spine. But he beautifully captures, too, the sheer persistence of illusion.

Reduced to grovelling desperation he can within seconds switch back into his cosy world of dreams. There is nothing more moving in this production than Dennehy's radiant smile, for the extraordinary truth is that again and again in this play Loman forgets reality for long enough to be happy.

Robert Falls directs a superb ensemble production, beautifully and fluidly designed by Mark Wendland to create the atmosphere of a troubling dream. Miller's knack of mixing the present and the past, the harsh truth and the consoling lie, still seems daring more than half a century on, and there isn't a single weak performance.

As Willy's devoted wife Linda, Clare Higgins gives the most moving account of unconditional love I have ever seen on stage, while also leaving no doubt of the terrible hurt that love costs her. Her plain anguished face will haunt the memory of all who see it. Douglas Henshall brings an extraordinary rawness to the stage as Biff, the boy hero who has royally screwed up in later life, while Mark Bazeley mercilessly lays bare all that is contemptible about his womanising, second-rate younger brother, Happy.

This is a wonderful production, as near flawless as makes no difference, and I watched it transfixed, totally overwhelmed by the classic tragic emotions of terror and pity.