Beauty is in the Eye of the Audience ScottKorte

Beauty is in the Eye of the Audience

Scott Korte

Theatre as an art form is meant to communicate something, anything, that a playwright is

trying to say. The playwright may intend for a message of social rebellion, one of familial love,

or one of simple retrospect. However, that message, no matter how apparent, is not always the

same clear-cut focal point when looked at by audiences from different cultures. Arthur Miller’s

play describing the life and fall of Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman is no different than any

other play in this regard. When viewed by audiences and performed by actors outside of its

native culture, as seen in Britain and China, Death of a Salesman will place emphasis on

different aspects of the show’s subtext than originally intended by Miller, while still managing to

retain its core themes and finding commonalities in other cultures.

At home, Death of a Salesman is a classic work of the Twentieth century that finds its

way into most, if not all, high school English programs. American culture has long introspected

on itself, arriving at the same questions time and time again: What is the American dream about,

who does it benefit, and how far is one willing to go in order to attain it? Most will argue that the

play is about the exhibition of the “American dream” in its most raw form,with Willy constantly

combating the specter of success that many around him have achieved; fortune, a stable family

setting, success for their children, and respect above all. Additionally, many people believe that

Willy is representative of the millions that try to reach that success, and his eventual death

highlights the realities that many faced in order to try and reach it. Not everyone is able to

achieve dreams, no matter how hard they work, and the failings of this dream are evident in the

play. Once this point is made about the Loman family, however, the intricacies of the play are

lost to most Americans and any secondary themes beyond the impact of the American dream are

frequently lost in discussions.

However, secondary themes are truly what give Salesman the depth and brilliance that

push it into the spotlight. Reducing Miller’s work to a dance around the American dream would

be doing it a greater disservice than referring to Shakespeare as a simple poet. Miller understands

the audience that he is writing to and wants to connect with them on a level deeper than a mere

recognition of their economic desires. He is able to craft a character who is so obsessed with the

success that has eluded him for a lifetime that he is willing to die in order to provide the fruits of

that success to his sons. The Lomans are not simply struggling with a classic case of financial

mismanagement, they are all wholly enveloped by their own lack of self-efficacy that

dysfunction and miscommunication By exhibiting these flaws and ambitions side by side, Miller

is able to show Americans just how much their “dream” really can cost, and the sheer

depravation and desperation that can go along with it.

With nothing left to do but fumble over questions, then, the most important questions

bubble to the top. For example, when a lifetime of expectations and hopes comes crashing down

in the span of just a few hours, how does a human being react? When one is forced to reckon

with a lifetime of failures and deferred happiness, the result is Willy Loman as we see him.

These questions form the crucible in which discussions of Death of a Salesman reside, propping

up criticisms of American dreams of wealth and “success.” With all of that said, it is clear that

Death of a Salesman is about so much more than just the American dream, and to reduce it to

that is a gross underestimation of its powerful content.

This power is evident in the very first production of the play in 1949 at the Morosco

theatre in New York City. With tickets running just under five dollars, anyone would have been

able to get a seat to the performance outside of the regular reviewer crowd. (Death of a

Salesman’s Dreams, Siegel) That night, Willy Loman’s plight was brought into the world for all

to see. He was brought out in front of Americans, just like him, no more than ten or twenty miles

away from where he lived. In no other place on earth would an audience be able to identify with

Willy more than that night in Times Square. What Americans saw in that play was a man beaten

down by the weight of his failures and the crippling phantoms of his past. Those watching in

1949 would have well remembered the same humiliation from not more than a decade past

during the Great Depression and resonated with those same feelings themselves.

Reviewers such as Brooks Atkinson saw this and recognized it immediately, stating “He

is Through. The phantom of his life has caught up with him. As literally as Mr. Miller can say it,

dust returns to dust. Suddenly there is nothing.” (NY Times, Atthe Theatre). Through the years,

this identification with Willy has made the play somewhat of an urban legend; a hallmark in the

development of America’s collective consciousness about what exactly it is that makes them

tick. For Willy, and for “some, especially men… bent forward covering their faces, and others…

openly weeping” (Death of a Salesman’s Dreams, Siegel), it means the march towards success,

however that be defined in spite of the phantoms it holds.

No matter how American Salesman is, it manages to find a home far away from its origin

in New York City. The United Kingdom, for example, has found an audience for Miller’s work

and has placed it on tour for decades. This is not wholly unexpected, as the UK and US have

much in common with each other,and the themes of the play would not go unnoticed by the

British. For centuries, they have been selling themselves to the rest of the world, and for

centuries they have produced some of the most motivated salesmen on earth. After all, the

founder of free-market thought, Adam Smith, hailed from the British Isles himself. All of this

said, the UK certainly shares the appreciation of the entrepreneurial spirit that is apparent within

Salesman’s DNA. However, when it comes to their reception to Salesman, the reaction is

markedly different. Perhaps it is this attitude towards the free market that is the cause, but the

British are not sympathetic in the same way to the failures of Willy Loman. Rather, they are

sensitive to his economic realities separate from his personal self. Rather than a play about the

familial failures of a man deluded in his quest for a better life, Willy Loman’s plight is one of

stone-cold economic mismanagement and the consequences that come with it.

With this distinction in mind, the obvious suffering Willy and his family go through is

still considered in the minds of British audiences. However, it is more common for initial

reactions to center around Willy’s economic situation first and foremost. After all, the British

have never had dreams of improving their lot, moving somewhere new, and throwing themselves

into the arms of the free market in a chance for wealth in the same way Americans have. As

Christina Odone writes, “My American friends may well ask, where is the British Dream. It

would seem that there's never been one. And that it's too late now to even envisage.” (Why is

there no British equivalent of the American Dream?). The British possess no equivalent cultural

desire, no drive for a life that can only be found within their borders. Once upon a time, while the

American dream was first beginning to from, the British had pride in their global empire, a pride

which has collapsed in the wake of realities that empires are extinct.

This reframing of Willy Loman and, by extension, his family shifts the focus of the play

away from the American discussion, while also keeping it in line with the same conclusions. The

British will argue that, while Willy’s failures will ultimately crush him and leave his family in

disarray, it was truly his economic state that ushered in his end. As reviewer Veronica Horwell

states, “Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman (1949) is aware that there are too many salesmen

for too few territories… Willy’s diminishing life and disappearing employment are attributed not

to macroeconomic forces, but to his personal failure, age and declining energy, which anticipates

the current neoliberal attitude –it’s all, always, your own fault.” (The Economics of Arthur

Miller: salesmen, dockers, and gilded preachers), summing up the view succinctly. Economics

drive this play say the British, but in the end Willy’s failures were his own and brought him to

his end.

This end is highlighted in the centennial celebration of Miller in the Royal Shakespeare

Company’s production in 2015. With Antony Sher in the driver’s seat of the play as Willy, the

play returns to the British Isles once again and offers another view into the tale of the broken

Brooklyn salesman. Audiences to the debacle of the Loman family likely wonder how it is that

Willy managed in such a business for so long and marveled at his lack of shame. Businessmen

likely saw some of themselves in Willy, or perhaps even the wanderlust of Biff, and all of them

would have been able to sympathize with the plight of a salesman who is left out to dry. Michael

Billington writes of Salesman, “its combination of compassion for a deeply flawed individual

with an attack on the debasement of the American dream that allows business success to be

substituted for the noble ideal of equality for all” (Death of a Salesman five-star review). Coming

back to the lack of an American dream for the British, it is easy to imagine that opinions such as

this are common among audiences in the UK. Sympathy for the man remains, but in the end

Willy Loman’s finances were his own fault.

Among all of the conversations about Willy’s financial ruin and its consequences,

Salesman has the ability to drift away from economics and find a home in those whose focus is

on the family unit. Seemingly antithetical to the collectivistic culture of the country, the People’s

Republic of China (PRC) is a firm fan of the play. In 1980 Arthur Miller himself was invited to

Peking (Beijing) to direct the first Chinese production of the show, and he did so gladly. At a

firstglance, one would not envision an anti-capitalistic culture such as the PRC to appreciate, let

alone understand, a play that revolves so heavily around the free market and monetary woes.

Such a collectivistic culture, one would imagine, would be baffled and galvanized by such a

performance, thinking that it stands as a clear-cut example as to the reasoning why Communism

would be favorable. However, such an expectation only scratches the surface of Chinese culture,

which existed for many millennia before Communism took power in the middle of the Twentieth

century.

In 1980 there certainly were businessmen in China. The Chinese have practiced

commerce as we are familiar with it long before the modern mindset. With the onset of the civil

war in the twenties this came to a halt under Communism, yet the spirit remained. More personal

forms of sales still exist in the PRC, such as with food or crafts. China is linked with New York

in this way, where “You go out on the street here on a Sunday… and you see hawkers and

pushcart peddlers and it reminds you of the Lower East Side of Manhattan 40 years ago” (Arthur

Miller says Chinese understand his ‘Salesman’). The spirit of the salesman is alive and well in

China, but it is not a salesman that audiences see in Willy Loman.

However, the economic woes that Willy faces would have been a mystery to Chinese in 1980, as

the man who could afford a home, a car, and appliances was unheard of in the largely agrarian

economy of the PRC at the time. Instead,they would see the Loman family and the struggles that

stem from them. Chinese culture centers around the concept of the family so strongly that any

kind of economic issue that may have been encountered by Willy is overshadowed by his

familial distress. Just as the Americans and British had, the Chinese would have looked at the

familial dynamics of Willy and his kin and seen something worthy of pity and sympathy, while

removing themselves from the argument of an economy that, to them, seemed to have rewarded

Willy far more than it would ever would for them, at least in the meantime.

The audience of this production was not concerned with ideologies that surrounded

Willy, but the more concrete reality of his relationships with his family. The core themes of

family would not have escaped the minds of the Chinese audience and would have been at the

foreground of any and all judgements that passed upon Willy. They would not have likely known

anything regarding life insurance or the dynamics of American sales positions, but they would

have been able to keenly feel the desperation of Willy for his life to be better, for his children to

succeed, to be willing to die (no matter the futility of it) for his family’s better. After all, China’s

economy did not transition to an industrial one until the early 1970s, and even then such

capitalistic ventures would have been outside their scope for many years beyond that still.

There would also have been a keen understanding of age gaps between generations, as

the issue was reaching a boiling point in China at the time. Gaps in birth rates between

generations left a bourgeoning older generation to be in the care of an underprepared younger

one, with tensions rapidly rising. The Willies and the Biffs of China would have looked to each

other and found understanding, as well as a kind of hope, for the future despite the hostile spite.

The actor playing Willy, Zhu Lin, commented on this in particular, stating “Haven’t we heard

enough of how parents pin their hopes on their children, and when their children fail, say, in

college entrance exams, they maltreat their own flesh and blood?... That is why we can

understand the feelings in this play” (Arthur Miller says Chinese understand his ‘Salesman’).

With a blatant climate of familial tension and abuse on the rise, the dynamic between Biff and

Willy would have been a distinct calling card for the Chinese, who were forcibly divided

between the old and the young.

Three countries, three different kinds of audiences, three different frames of mind, and all

of these audiences come away from Salesman with their own unique take on the play. Cultures

and values will change no matter where someone moves to but, in the end, conclusions can be

made that bear some semblance to those found elsewhere. All three of these cultures can look at

the Loman family and find bits and pieces of themselves written within them. Any person in

these countries can have sympathy for Willy and draw a personal parallel.

However, the economic realities and histories of these audiences results in them viewing

Willy and his work in differing ways. Just as with a painting or sculpture that is placed in a

museum for others to gaze upon and discuss, Salesman is a play that is placed in front of

audiences all around the world and can be discussed multilaterally. The core themes of the play

are always mentioned in each interpretation, as they are simply so apparent. However, many

times there is a distinct differentiation between cultures on what exactly they see besides that,

what they hold to be the most important aspects. The bonds between the members of a family,

the financial ruin which plagues a family, and the dreams that family share are just a few specific

examples which could represent the many interpretations of Death of a Salesman across the

world.

Works Cited

Atkinson, Brooks. “At The Theatre.” The New York Times, 11 February 1949, https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/00/11/12/specials/millersalesman49.html?module=inline.

Billington, Michael. “Death of a Salesman five-star review –Antony Sher is extraordinary.” The Guardian, 2 April 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/apr/02/death-of-a-salesmanreview-antony-sher-harriet-walter-arthur-miller-rsc.

Dahlby, Tracy. “Arthur Miller Says Chinese Understand His ‘Salesman’.” The Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1983/05/01/arthur-miller-says-chineseunderstand-his-salesman/aad51bb6-5c01-4e77-b362- cd757cb7fe77/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.158342bfc17e#comments.

Hornwell, Veronica. “The economics of Arthur Miller: salesman, dockers and gilded preachers.” The Guardian, 2 March 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/mar/02/economicsarthur-miller-view-from-the-bridge-salesman.

Odone, Cristina. “Why is there no British equivalent of the American Dream?” New Statesman America, 17 September 2001, https://www.newstatesman.com/node/154131.

Siegel, Lee. “Death of a Salesman’s Dreams.” The New York Times, 2 May 2012, p. A31.