Arthur Miller Festival: Inside Rehearsal

posted by Jamieson Baker (directing intern for the Arthur Miller Festival)

These pictures are from the original Broadway productions of Death of a Salesman (1949) and A View from the Bridge (1955). Now that rehearsals are under way for both productions in the Miller Festival, the actors, directors and creative team are discovering new ideas about bringing the plays to life.

Director Daniel Aukin began the first rehearsal for A View from the Bridge by sharing some of his ideas about the play. On one level, the play was Miller's response to the film On the Waterfront, which was directed by his longtime collaborator, Elia Kazan. Kazan had directed the original Broadway production of Death of a Salesman, and Miller later approached Kazan with a screenplay for a film that dealt with the experiences of longshoremen in Brooklyn called The Hook. Miller and Kazan parted ways after Miller criticized Kazan's decision to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, and in 1954 Kazan made On the Waterfront, which starred Marlon Brando as a heroic longshoreman who informs on the mob. The film also starred Lee J. Cobb, who originated the role of Willy Loman. This is the film's original trailer:

Daniel also believes the play is about the primal, animalistic instincts in all of us, and the conflict between those instincts and the social institutions we have put in place to control them. In A View from the Bridge, the institution of the family is unable to subdue those instincts, and the fate of Eddie Carbone is an extreme example of an experience we all share.

In rehearsal for Death of a Salesman, Director Timothy Bond and Dramaturg Mark Bly began discussing the play's themes with the cast on the first day. Salesman certainly deals with the dark and dangerous side of the American Dream, but it has also spoken to the experiences of audiences all around the world. Arthur Miller wrote a memoir of his experience directing the Chinese premier of the play, Salesman in Beijing, and Tim and Mark have shared excerpts from the book that provide insight into the characters and the themes of family, denial and success.

The published version of Death of a Salesman describes a very expressionistic set, and many of the scenes take place in Willy Loman's memory, his imagination, or both (in fact, Miller originally called the play Inside of his Head). The fact that Arena is presenting Salesman in repertory with the more naturalistic A View from the Bridge has forced both directors and designers to reconsider some of their ideas, but they have found creative inspiration in the design constraints of the repertory, and lighting designer Nancy Schertler has come up with many ways to portray the different settings in Miller's plays.