Notes from John: An Evening Arena Stage Theater Experience

John Layman is a co-sponsor of Death of a Salesman and as a benefit of sponsorship he was able to attend the rehearsal process for both productions in the Miller Repertory.

posted by John Layman

Dear Theaterophiles,
Last evening I attended the first preview week presentation of A View from the Bridge, a wonderful evening of seeing for the first time the whole play after seeing non-sequential excerpts in rehearsal. It was a powerful performance with the same actors that I have gotten to know from Death of a Salesman. To top it off, when I got to the Metro platform after the performance for my train to College Park, Jeremy Holm who plays Biff, Tim Getman who plays Hap, and Louis Cancelmi who plays Bernard, all in Death of a Salesman arrived and we had plenty of time to discuss all things theater. I told Jeremy that I had seen him in the Shakespeare Theatre production of Cyrano. He said that he had done Cyrano on additional occasions since then. He went on to talk of his wife’s involvement in the arts and her present contracts and Jeremy indicated that he was seeking a summer play so they could sublet their New York apartment to control living costs. This little aside is not to brag, but to indicate how lucky I am to have made friends among this fine group of actors and to gain insights few have had access to. Nancy Robinette came into the lobby with her son from New York. She plays a wonderful Linda in Death but only a small part in View. Her son and I had a couple of chats as our paths crossed in the lobby. He was there to celebrate his mother’s birthday.

I find myself torn by having witnessed both A View from the Bridge very successfully focused on the challenges of a lower class family surrounded by the docks, by immigrants, and the Immigration Service, and the troubles faced by Willy, his middle class family and friends in Death of a Salesman. Fortunately they are different, even though both emerge from the pen of Arthur Miller. I prefer Death due to the intricacies within the lives of its many characters resulting in a more complex play. Seeing both plays, the outgrowth of the repertory program associated with both plays, is a special treat, and attending the rehearsals as well as multiple performances is an opportunity I could not have imagined in my days at Park College when Ellen and I worked on theater productions together.