A revelatory Rob Morrow heads an all-around superb cast in The Ruskin Group Theatre’s meticulously directed, stunningly performed 70th-anniversary revival of Arthur Miller’s Death Of A Salesman.

By the time we meet Willy (Morrow), the lifelong salesman has become at age 60 a mere shadow of who he once was—or perhaps better put, of what he only believes he once was: a “well-liked” man at the top of the traveling sales game.

 A nearly broken wreck these days, Willy has taken to talking to himself in remembered conversations with his long-suffering wife Linda (Lee Garlington), his now 30something sons Biff (Robert Adamson) and Happy (Dylan Rourke), his well-to-do neighbor Charley (Jack Merrill) and Charley’s equally prosperous son-and-heir Bernard (Lucas Alifano), and most significantly with his deceased brother Ben (Donovan Patton), who achieved a rags-to-riches success in Africa that Willy has been unable to replicate back home.

Not surprisingly, Willy’s bizarre behavior has begun to prey on Linda’s mind, as has Willy’s recent car crash, a one-vehicle collision that may not have been as accidental as she would like to think.

Adding to Linda’s family concerns are younger son Happy’s inveterate womanizing and all-around lack of achievement (a case of like father-like son), and Biff’s return to the family nest having long ago failed to fulfill the potential he showed as a high school athlete.

Talk about a recipe for American-style Greek tragedy.

It’s hard to underestimate the effect Death Of A Salesman must have had seventy years ago with its repeated back-and-forth transitions between present and past and reality and fantasy unlike anything Broadway audiences had experienced up to that point, a mix that remains every bit as potent in 2019 as it was in 1949.

There’s barely a trace of Northern Exposure’s boyish Dr. Joel Fleishman in Morrow’s breathtaking, heartbreaking Willy, worn down by time and failure to the shell of the man he once was, the longtime TV star delivering a career-redefining performance that becomes even more riveting the more we see the Loman patriarch unravel before our eyes.

Under Mike Reilly’s impeccable direction, this latest Death Of A Salesman is no one-man show, however, beginning with Garlington’s indelible supporting turn as a worn-down but unfailingly encouraging Linda.

As for Adamson’s tormented, disillusioned Biff and Rourke’s peppy optimistic Happy, the up-and-coming duo make it clear there’s nothing dated about Miller’s turns of phrases when delivered with spot-on Brooklyn accents.

An across-the-board fabulous featured cast lend finely-turned support beginning with Patton’s charismatic charmer of an Uncle Ben, still young and brimming with vitality in Willy’s memory.

Merrill makes Charley the mensch every bad-luck-plagued salesman can only wish would live next door and Alifano’s Bernard transitions terrifically from nerdy teen to self-assured adult.

Darrin Hickok does dynamic double duty as a hard-hearted Howard and an ingratiating table-waiting Stanley, a sultry Kerry Knuppe is precisely The Woman to turn any straight traveling salesman’s head, and Sara Young Chandler’s Miss Forsythe and Emily Anna Bell’s Letta provide delightful dinner companionship to the Loman boys, Bell doubling as Charley’s efficient secretary Jenny.

Scenic designer Stephanie Kerley Schwartz makes ingenious use of the Ruskin’s compact playing area to give us a bedroom that doubles as a hotel room, a kitchen that transforms into a restaurant, and more.

Ed Salas’s sound and lighting designs transport us from present to past and back again to impressive effect and Dianne K. Graebner does likewise with her spot-on 1930s/40s costume designs.

Death Of A Salesman is produced by John Ruskin and Michael R. Myers. Nicole Millar is stage manager. Casting is by Paul Ruddy. William J Beaumont, Blaine Kern, and Kevin McCorkle are understudies.

Ruskin Group Theatre Company revivals of Arthur Miller’s name-making All My Sons and his autobiographical A Memory Of Two Mondays have already demonstrated the company’s mastery of things Miller. Their Death Of A Salesman proves every bit as masterful.

Ruskin Group Theatre, 3000 Airport Avenue, Santa Monica.
www.ruskingrouptheatre.com

–Steven Stanley
June 21, 2019
Photos: Ed Krieger

Tags: Arthur Miller, Los Angeles Theater Review, Rob Morrow, Ruskin Group Theatre