It's love that makes a man and love that kills him. This much was clear at Arena Stage Thursday night as the theater presented an American classic, "Death of a Salesman" by Arthur Miller.
The show is playing in repertory with "A View From the Bridge" as part of Arena Stage's Arthur Miller Festival.
"Death of a Salesman" tackles the story of Willy Loman. In short, the performance by two-time Helen Hayes Award-winner Rick Foucheux was emotionally exhaustive, as seen on Foucheux's face, in his weighted walk and droopy belly. The audience, however, was constantly engaged thanks to Miller's timeless story about love and the American Dream. Loman is a salesman who just wants to be well-liked, but as he grows old and his sons grow up, he finds himself grasping for dreams that move further and further away.
Foucheux played the exhaustion and the slide to reality; in the end the audience was in tears.
Arena Stage chose to recreate two inarguably character-based shows for good reason. The company is currently undergoing a renovation of its regular space, making way for a new $125 million theater complex that will sport a 500-seat theater and a space nicknamed the Cradle - a small 100-seat theater dedicated to the development of new work.
In the meantime, shows take place in Crystal City in Arlington, Va. While this is a temporary space, it also underwent A $750,000 renovation. The theater seats a large crowd and maintains a luxurious amount of legroom.
In fact, one can only feel the temporary nature of the space peripherally, thanks to the Arena Stage's creative use of the stage. Since "A View From the Bridge" played the night after, the set on Thursday night was small and impermanent, filling half the stage with a bed and kitchen table and leaving the other half of the stage to become whatever other location the play called for.
But Arena Stage embraced the small stage by choosing character-based shows. Not only was Foucheux a previous Helen Hayes Award winner, but so were four of his fellow cast members, including Nancy Robinette who portrayed Linda, Willy's wife, with a strikingly Maggie Smith-style intensity.
Tim Getman, who recently worked on Woolly Mammoth Theater's world premiere of "the Unmentionables," and Jeremy S. Holm played Willy's sons - Happy and Biff - respectively. Holm's portrayal was many things, and it fit so much better than John Malkovich's performance from the 1985 film version of the play.
Arena Stage made great, classic decisions in the production, and the audience was with them the whole time. In the end, the audience gave Foucheux and the rest of the cast a standing ovation. But the true test of the cast's talent will be the night after when they tackle "A View From the Bridge"
