Playwright Barbara Cassidy Offers a ‘Feminist Critique’ of ‘Death of a Salesman’

In a note introducing the script of “Mrs. Loman,” Barbara Cassidy’s new “feminist critique” of “Death of A Salesman,” the playwright explains: “I wanted to make a play about a Linda Loman” — that is, the wife of Willy Loman, Arthur Miller’s tragic title character — “who becomes a very different person after Willy’s death. ‘Mrs. Loman’ is a play which in Juvenalian satirical fashion, struggles with the world—first, Miller’s world, then, our historical past, and ultimately, the here and now.”If the references to Juvenal, the Roman poet, and our “historical past” (so noted to distinguish it from our ahistorical past, perhaps) didn’t tip you off, “Ms. Loman” is a play that’s very proud of its social and literary mission. Yet it’s weighed down, and made ironically silly at times, by its self-consciousness and self-righteousness.The play opens where “Salesman” leaves off, after Willy Loman’s funeral. Linda arrives at their Brooklyn home with sons Happy and Biff, both in their 30s and floundering. Willy’s old buddy Charley is also in attendance, with his son, Bernard, who was a nerd to Biff’s football hero in high school but is now a successful lawyer.These details are well known, and to her credit Ms. Cassidy doesn’t waste time rehashing the plot of Miller’s canonical work. Just to be safe, though, she offers some key reminders, in a rather obvious fashion. “He led a false life. … He killed himself,” her Biff informs us of his father, as if reading from a CliffsNotes guide. Charley counters, “He was a man who believed in the power of the American dream,” only reinforcing Biff’s point, and Miller’s: that Willy’s pursuit of money and obsession with status played roles in his demise. For Ms. Cassidy, capitalism is only one of many evils festering in our country.Sexism is, as you’d expect, the most prominent sin in “Mrs. Loman,” which reimagines not only its heroine but other, smaller female roles from “Salesman.” A middle-aged neighbor named Esther, given an exaggerated sense of mischief that’s emphasized in Linda Jones’s performance, turns up at the post-funeral gathering; there are immediate hints and increasing suggestions that she’s Willy’s mistress from Boston, who was identified simply as The Woman in “Salesman.”Linda Jones and Monique Vukovic in ‘Mrs. Loman.’ Mari Eimas-DietrichEsther convinces Linda to enroll in a philosophy class at Brooklyn College, and before you know it Miller’s long-suffering housewife — portrayed here by Monique Vukovic, who is by turns mousy, perky, and indignant, depending on what the text requires — is reading Camus, Sartre, and Simone de Beauvoir. A mysterious “contemporary woman,” played by Patricia Marjorie with a vaguely French accent and a distinct smugness, begins following her around, periodically addressing the audience. “What could possibly happen in Linda Loman’s life, given all we know about her?” this woman asks. “What do we know about her? In this time and place. … There is writing, philosophy, poetry, music. Things have happened and have been thought about. Let’s be open to possibilities.” Not surprisingly, though, this gal seems more interested in preaching than in listening, and at points those instincts seem to rub off on the protagonist. When Biff gets a job as a tour guide for the Statue of Liberty and proudly reads his patriotic speech to his mom, Linda quips, “I guess you’re not supposed to mention women or Jim Crow, internment camps, or the removal of the Lenape Indians.”Then there’s Happy, who emerges here not only as weaselly and jealous of his brother but as a racist and a rapist. His bigotry is revealed when Biff begins dating a Black woman. “Here’s a thought—are racism and sexism related?” the contemporary woman wonders aloud. “Is a culture that is racist sexist? Or is a culture that (is) sexist racist? Or are they just two (expletive)-ed up systems?”Here’s another thought — a couple of them, actually: Sexism and racism are present in every culture, and neither dropping French names that may seem hipper than Arthur Miller’s nor turning his 20th-century characters into 21st-century caricatures makes for an enlightening or entertaining critique, feminist or otherwise.

Playwright Barbara Cassidy Offers a ‘Feminist Critique’ of ‘Death of a Salesman’

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