In “Mrs. Loman,” a misfire of a play that attempts a sequel to Arthur Miller’s “Death of A Salesman,” Willy Loman’s widow Linda experiences a somewhat anachronistic awakening, while playwright Barbara Cassidy weaves in a critique of Miller that focuses on his treatment of race and gender. Neither the awakening nor the critique are especially novel, and there is nothing inherently wrong with reimagining Arthur Miller’s plays from a 21st century perspective: Julia May Jonas recently riffed adroitly on “All My Sons” , both Sarah Ruhl’s “Becky Nurse of Salem” and Kimberly Belflower’s “John Proctor is the Villain,” (opening on Broadway this season) on “The Crucible.” It’s just that Cassidy’s script does such an inept job of it.
This is not immediately apparent, thanks to a largely persuasive cast led by standout Monique Vukovic in the title role, and a production in which the designers modestly but effectively evoke both the 1940s and the lyricism of the original play.
But the everyday poetry of Miller’s dialogue is replaced by a penchant for banality and ham-handed exposition.
In Miller’s play, Linda Loman gets a famous speech — “… I don’t say he’s a great man. Willie Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper .He’s not the finest character that ever lived. But he’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He’s not to be allowed to fall in his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a person” – She also gets the final words of the play, in a deeply moving scene at his grave.
The Linda of “Mrs. Loman” abruptly dismisses the “attention” speech (“Attention was paid – to you.”) and says things like “Fill your plates everyone! Willy would want that. Good food, good family, good life.”
Everything is spelled out. In a toast to Willy back at Linda’s home after the funeral, the neighbor’s son Bernard says: “To a man who made the American Dream a reality.” A later scene begins with Bernard’s father Charley holding a water hose: “Hey there Linda,” he says, “I just thought I would water the garden here.” Whole scenes play out with all the subtlety and subtext of an elementary school play.
The reason that I know “Mrs. Loman” is intended to get us wondering about the treatment of race and gender in Miller’s plays, is because a character (identified in the program as “Contemporary Woman”) comes on stage and addresses the audience directly: “Do you ever wonder about race in Miller?… Where are the Black people?” – one of several such awkwardly explicit critiques. She says this right before we meet a new character, Lena, a young Black woman who is newly dating Linda’s oldest son Biff. Several of the characters say racist things, apparently so that an enlightened Linda can tell them off.
The greater focus, though, is on gender. Linda also gets a new friend, Esther, who helps her sign up for college courses, and introduces her to jazz, existential philosophy, marijuana, and lesbian sex. Although “Mrs. Loman” is supposed to take place in 1949 among a working class Brooklyn family, the characters also throw into casual dinner conversation mention of the atomic bomb, the removal of the Lenape Indians, the Holocaust, sexual assault (This one at least turns out to be personal: Linda’s younger son Happy is revealed as a sexual predator.). To be fair, there are some scenes that are meant to be in “Dream Space” or “Sometime” rather than 1949, and we’re meant to understand that the ‘Contemporary Woman’ is feeding Linda some of her political comments, and she’s the one who does most of the quoting of existential and feminist philosophers verbatim.
I imagine some theatergoers will respond to something in “Mrs. Loman,” maybe Linda’s reading passages from Simone de Beauvoir’s “The Second Sex,” (men are counseled to treat a woman “as a slave while persuading her that she is a queen”), or the simple fact that she comes into her own; Vukovic bestows a certain dignity on her once mousy character. But any such potentially redeeming moments were erased for me by a violent climax that I can’t bring myself to detail. This is not because it’s a spoiler, but because it’s too ludicrous for attention to be paid.
Mrs. Loman
Theatre Row through February 15
Written by Barbara Cassidy
Directed by Meghan Finn
Scenic designers Christopher and Justin Swader, costume and props designer Patricia Marjorie, lighting designer Brian Aldous
Cast: Monique Vukovic as Mrs. Loman, Linda Jones as Esther, Hartley Parker as Happy, Matt “Ugly” McGlade as Biff, Ara Celia Butler as Lena, Patricia Marjorie as Contemporary Woman, Jerry Ferris as Charlie, and Joe Gregori as Bernard.
Photos by Mari Eimas-Dietrich
