This sixth Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s towering play is undeniably a Prestige Production, but it’s one that strains for effect, from the casting of Nathan Lane and Laurie Metcalf, who are two of Broadway’s finest actors but are not an ideal fit for their roles, to the steady flow of stage smoke, which constantly reminds us: This is lyrical!   The tragedy of Willy Loman is always affecting, never less than relevant,  and Joe Mantello, a much-acclaimed director,  makes some smart choices amid the strained ones. But  this “Death of a Salesman,” opening on Broadway tonight just three years after the previous Broadway revival, will be most satisfying to those theatergoers who have never seen a first-rate production of the play.

The play begins when Nathan Lane as Willy Loman has driven back home after aborting his business trip, feeling too tired and distracted to continue. But home looks like a dark garage, its most prominent features a series of dark pillars (helping to create many “partial view” seats), a large window with 48 translucent panes of glass, and an ominous-looking metal gate. The gate rolls up and Willy drives in a red 1964 Chevy Chevelle Malibu.  Does this mean the play is now set in the 1960s, rather than the traditional 1949 (which is when the first production debuted on Broadway.) Or is it a signal that the setting is all times and no times; timeless? The car will remain on stage for most of the play, an odd and palpable presence in the scenes that take place in a hotel and in a restaurant. The car (which is on the cover of the show’s playbill)  is evidently symbolic, representing past glories – Willy boasts of how his eldest son Biff used to simonize the car to make it look brand new (“The dealer refused to believe there was eighty thousand miles on it”) – and, more subtly, suggesting current delusions – he refers to the car as a Studebaker, which even the average New York subway rider would realize is not true.

 Willy opens the car door, and carries out his sample cases, his body sagging with defeat and fatigue. But when he says to his wife Linda “I’m tired to the death,” a strange thing happened. His voice reminded me of Timon saying “Hakuna Matata!” Lane of course did the voice of that sarcastic meerkat in “The Lion King” animated film. He is among the finest comic actors in the land, one of the stage’s greatest entertainers, and his inimitable voice – sardonic, amused – probably plays a  part in his career success. It’s not just his voice.His face in repose characteristically looks as if he’s about to crack a joke,

Yes, I know, Lane has taken on serious roles, winning a Tony for portraying Roy Cohn in “Angels of America.”  But think about that character; Cohn is depicted as a kind of insult comic, ruthless, malicious, but witty.  The inherent quality of Lane’s voice is the reason why he gets a big laugh in “Death of a Salesman” when Willy complains about the refrigerator: “Whoever heard of a Hastings refrigerator? Once in my life I would like to own something outright before it’s broken!” Lane doesn’t have the deep serious voice and lumbering presence of actors like Lee J. Cobb and Brian Dennehy, whom Miller himself (who died in 2005) identified as his favorite Willy Lomans, in a collection of newly published interviews with his biographer Christopher Bigsby. Such actors “can really bellow out some of those lines,” Miller said. “I think that the forces in those big men do power up. You get the feeling of some big thing falling.”

In the tensest scenes of confrontation and despair, with Willy lost in the past and simultaneously overwhelmed by the present, Lane’s sardonic tone disappears. But Willy’s explosions of anger can feel excessive, as if Lane is working extra hard to demolish any trace of his natural demeanor.  His ratcheting up to outright screaming too often thrust me out of the action, making me feel as if I were witnessing at best an embarrassing public squabble between strangers – and at worst an actor showing off or losing control —  rather than identifying with the characters and sharing (or at least sympathizing with) their emotions.

There is a similar but less pronounced dynamic at play with Laurie Metcalf, who is probably still best-known for her comic chops (Roseanne’s TV sister), but has had a wide range of stage roles. As Linda, Metcalf also gets a few laughs in lines where her predecessors have not, and is more demonstrative than the still and stunned way the character has been played in the past. Hers is a legitimate interpretation, but she is not the most moving Linda I’ve seen.

Mantello casts the supporting roles in some intriguing ways. He divides the two sons among four actors – Biff and his younger brother Happy as both their present-day adults and as their teenage selves. It is an effective move. We see Joaquin Consuelos (the ripped son of Kelly Ripa, making his Broadway debut) portraying the eager, energetic, athletic Biff in his football uniform, while Christopher Abbott (who in his bio doesn’t even mention his breakout role as the heartthrob in the 2012-2016 HBO series “Girls”) depicting the aimless, slightly less buff Biff in sloppy sportswear that he has become fifteen years later. In this way, we more fully sense the toll of Biff’s disillusionment with his father. “I’m not bringing home any prizes any more, and you’re going to stop waiting for me to bring them home,” he finally exclaims to Willy. There’s an extra little fillip when we see the two Biffs together on stage.

Jake Termine’s shy Young Happy, usually ignored, is completely transformed into Ben Ahlers’ adult Happy, the worst kind of attention-grabbing ladies man; that they seem like thoroughly different people may be the point. (Both actors are making their Broadway debuts as well, Ahler best known as the butler turned inventor Jack Trotter in “The Gilded Age”, Termine a musical theater student at Binghamton University.)

Bernard, the neighboring nerdy kid who grows up to be a high-powered lawyer, is also portrayed by two actors (Karl Green and Michael Benjamin Washington), who, like their father Charley (K. Todd Freeman), are Black. (This feels like a hat tip to the last Broadway revival, starring Wendell Pierce and Sharon D. Clarke, in which the Loman family was Black.) The race of these next-door neighbors adds an extra layer to Willy’s envy and resentment towards them; his bafflement at their success; his unwillingness to take the job that Charley offers him. They seem the embodiment of the ant to the Loman family’s grasshopper in Aesop’s fable

There are lessons aplenty and breathtaking moments in this production, as in almost any production of “Death of a Salesman” since its debut in 1949. That was just the third year of the Tony Awards, and it won six of them, plus the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The first Broadway revival, 26 years later, didn’t win any Tonys, although George C. Scott was nominated. I don’t know the reasons why the current producers have decided to mount this seventh production of the play on Broadway so soon after the sixth. But surely there is a relevant cautionary lesson right in the play, maybe that line the Biff finally says to Willy about prizes.

Death of a Salesman
Winter Garden through August 9
Running time: Two hours and 50 minutes, including one intermission
Tickets: $94 – $399. Digital lottery: $49 (Broadway Rush and Lottery Policies)
Written by Arthur Miller
Music by Caroline Shaw
Directed by Joe Mantello; 
Movement direction by Sasha Milavic Davies, scenic design by Chloe Lamford, costume design by Rudy Mance, lighting design by Jack Knowles, sound design by Mikaal Sulaiman, and hair and wig design by Robert Pickens.
Cast: Nathan Lane as Willy Loman, Laurie Metcalf as Linda, Christopher Abbott as Biff, Ben Ahlers as Happy,Jonathan Cake as Uncle Ben, K. Todd Freeman as Charley, John Drea as Howard, Tasha Lawrence as The Woman, Jake Silbermann as Stanley, Michael Benjamin Washington as Bernard, Joaquin Consuelos as Young Biff, Jake Termine as Young Happy, Karl Green as Young Bernard, Katherine Romans as Miss Forsyth, Mary Neely as Letta,  Understudies: Alexis Bronkovic, Aidan Cazeau, Brendan Donaldson,Jack Falahee, Erik Kilpatrick Charlie Niccolini