By Matthew Wexler
In the watershed Broadway revival of Death of a Salesman, director Joe Mantello immediately sears the audience with the timeless illusion of the American Dream.
Upstage of the sprawling industrial garage, replete with crumbling tiles and discarded toys, a massive coiling door rises. Aging salesman Willy Loman pulls in behind the wheel of an early-1960s Chevy Impala—neither the Studebaker he keeps crashing nor the “little red” Chevrolet he recalls simonizing in flashback scenes. The blinding headlights immediately ask us to question what a life well-lived looks like in “the greatest country in the world.”
A timeless ‘Death of a Salesman’ Broadway revival
Mantello’s production—starring Nathan Lane as the beleaguered salesman and Laurie Metcalf as his wife—marks the play’s seventh time on Broadway. While Arthur Miller’s original 1949 script remains nearly entirely unchanged, the world of the play is upended.
Scenic designer Chloe Lamford and costume designer Rudy Mance travel down an anachronistic highway, challenging us to sit in Willy’s decade-spanning toxic masculinity. Lane’s Willy is stubborn and explosive, enraged by a society that fails to deliver what he feels he’s due.
In contrast, Metcalf’s Linda stretches beyond the role of capable homemaker. Her devout commitment to her unraveling husband, and to keeping the peace between Willy and their sons, Biff (Christopher Abbott) and Happy (Ben Ahlers), nearly reaches a tipping point.
Mantello further amplifies the play’s flashback scenes by double-casting the boys as younger versions of themselves (Joaquin Consuelos and Jake Termine), warmly illuminated by Jack Knowles’ otherwise stark lighting design.
Racial tension also finds its way into the production. Though not as centered as the 2022 Broadway revival, here the Lomans find themselves living next door to Charley (K. Todd Freeman), a successful Black businessman. Charley repeatedly offers Willy a job, which he refuses.
“He had the wrong dreams,” Biff says of his father in what Miller referred to as the play’s requiem. The brutal truth asks us to consider how much of Willy Loman lives in each of us. After all, “attention must be paid.”
Is ‘Death of a Salesman’ worth seeing?
5 out of 5 stars
Nathan Lane and Laurie Metcalf are devastating, but it’s Mantello’s anachronistic, decade-spanning staging that makes this Death of a Salesman unforgettable.
- Winter Garden Theatre, 1634 Broadway, New York City
- Notable performers: Nathan Lane, Laurie Metcalf, Christopher Abbott, Ben Ahlers
- Running time: Two hours and 50 minutes, including one intermission
- Performances through August 9, 2026
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