‘Death Of A Salesman’ Broadway Review: Wendell Pierce & Sharon D Clarke Revitalize A Classic
deadline.comDeath of a Salesman, Arthur Miller’s classic tragedy of the American Dream gone sour, is revitalized and given room to encompass the Black experience in director Miranda Cromwell’s intriguing production opening at the Hudson Theatre on Broadway tonight.
Boasting flat-out terrific performances – Wendell Pierce as Willie Loman and the amazing Sharon D Clarke as his wife Linda – this Death of a Salesman doesn’t so much reinvent Miller’s masterpiece as open its doors to perspectives that enrich the material.
The script is unchanged – and surprisingly accommodating to the fresh point of view – with Cromwell and composer Femi Temowo lacing the show with markers of mid-20th Century Black life – the sounds and movement of jazz, blues and gospel, most notably – infusing the production with a legacy and identity all its own.
The wrenching, beaten-down performance of Pierce (The Wire, Broadway’s The Piano Lesson) and Clarke’s heartbroken but stalwart Linda (the Olivier Award winning actress brings the wounded but enduring fierceness that marked her stunning Caroline, Or Change performance) make clear that this family’s dogged pursuit of an elusive American Dream can never be fully considered without attention paid, and respect given, to their Blackness.
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