How Colorful is this Tragedy?
Okay! So the American tragic hero is also the “hero image” for all of American theater. That is my thought. If this is true then our collective story is a tragedy with no catharsis - just a circular purgatory of coming and going and never arriving.
Heavy. Theater has the reputation of being too heavy. or, too goofy. When you think of theater does big tragic drama come to mind? Or, silly slapstick song and dance? I get both…a little like a sitcom…with a sad ending. Maybe that is why I am so committed to the Roc Dutton version of Death of a Salesman. It is like a commentary on the genres that feel quirkily ours and Roc’s - the small home domestic dramas. One set, one home, fairly humble. All of the emotions. Five facial expressions per minute. A couch, a chair, a tv, a coat closet.
And so nice and goofy! All of that wonderful over-acting. My kids love sitcoms. My younger sister loved sitcoms when I was too old for them. I walked in on … what show was it? Boy Meets World? I expressed horror for how fake it was…did I call it terrible…I probably did. She retorted angrily and wise beyond her years that I had loved these shows when I was her age. Honestly, the very first time that I had considered different strokes for different folks — and we are different folks in different stages of our life. And what I am still working my way through now. My kids looove! theater…well…the 15 year old likes select theater, and the little ones prefer the more sitcom-y stuff.
I’m not calling this over-acting. Or even sitcom-y acting. It is a nice continuum from Roc, though. This is the big American tragedy; Willy is an exciting guy. Is it a little too light and colorful? A little too network tv? I did choose primary colors. I was referencing the colorful sitcom in my head, I think. This acting did the same. Sitcom that gets serious.
That’s the original set design. Cartoony proportions. That shade range is dialed down a bit compared to ours, above. The 2012 Phillip Seymour Hoffman production used the original set design and the original music. I wonder where his production fell on the sitcom to serious tragedy spectrum.
I didn’t find any color photos of the set. Just this bow where we can see the costume colors.
In the background of these flash photos we can see that the scene painting on the scrim walls is grey. The women in colorful dresses are only in a few scenes. Imagine the show with Willy’s tie as the only pop of color.
Okay. Real furniture that has not been doctored to look stylized, and a classic theater-style painted background = drab. This one is lit beautifully, we can tell by those black and white photos above. But the reality of Willy’s surroundings and the clothing has no sitcom optimism; especially for the actors onstage.
This most recent production is quite bright! Those clothes are from the flashbacks. And then sharp greys in present (on the right). Wendell Pierce was on a dramatic television show for
Hmmm…this is our most iconic play and this is our most iconic image…it skews simultaneously goofy and heavy. I guess Americans of the US kind are a bit of a farce to some (most) of the world. I thought that original production would be a little like my production — a little sitcomical. But I’m seeing seriousness despite those high peaks of the set and the artificiality of the backdrops.
If you look at dramatic (read: unhappy tragedy) theater attendance rates vs. sitcom watching rates over the decades, it seems like we have always preferred a happy semi-free chuckle on our own couches (sitcoms) to the expensive public purge (theater). I have found no satisfying analysis of how we like our stories and what they do to us that takes the impact of the genre into account. Are in-person events more impactful? That is my impression. Is that true? 3 seasons x 23 episodes x 23 minutes of Roc = a 3 hour Death of a Salesman?
Who chooses to go to big tragedies? Do we lighten the mood and brighten the colors up so that we can tolerate it? So that it looks like it may end differently this time? Is it too heavy and everyone would prefer to consider American masculinity on a weekly/nightly/bingely basis at home? Were my production and the most recent one a little more upbeat and television levels of bright and colorful because we all grew up on television? Or because we are trying to lighten the load of this show.
If we meet the genre head-on, this show is too heavy. ?
Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s friends said that this role changed him. Did you know that Willy Loman was his first real acting role in high school? He got injured wrestling and had to give up sports. He took up acting, and got oh-my-god’s from everyone when he did this role. 25 years later, and 23 years after he gave up drugs and drinking, playing Willy was so hard on him every night that he started drinking and taking drugs again. He said that he wouldn’t do theater any more. It was too hard on him.
His family and friends think that he was not trying to kill himself when he OD’d. It’s clear, though, that Willy’s struggle is not really something you can live through.
I just want all of us to get the tone right. Especially as we watch dillusional American men play out their ego struggles on our country and the world right now. If you want a script and some options for hero images to guide the tone of the play in your heads, please let me know in the comments. Tell me what works. Send me your hero images of this play...no cheating and choosing the bookcover (Like I did a week ago.)
