STAGE: Life imitates 'Death'

From left, John Sherrick as Willy Loman, Matthew Hinton (Happy), director Rich Kramer, Billy Joe Herbert (Biff) and Carol Warholak Sweeney as Willy’s wife, Linda, in Gaslight Theatre Company’s production of ‘Death of a Salesman.’ Below, the cast rehearses.

Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman,” by Gaslight Theatre Company, Thurs., Jan. 5-Sat. Jan. 7, 7:30 p.m., Sun., Jan. 8, 2 p.m., The Mellow Theater (501 Vine St., Scranton). Tickets: $10 adults, $8 students/seniors via 570.824.8266, etix.com. Info: gaslight-theatre.org

by Nikki M. Mascali
Weekender Editor

It’s no accident that Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” is Rich Kramer’s directorial debut.

“It’s a play I grew up,” he explained. “I come from a long line of salesmen. My sister sold real estate, my father was a traveling man, and my grandfather used to say that ‘Kramer translated to peddler.’”

The play is the story of Willy Loman, an aging salesman who is struggling with life on the road, the future of his two sons, Biff and Happy, and his own state of mind. With Kramer’s own father a road warrior who sold men’s suits, there are certainly a few correlations between the Lomans and the Kramers.

“Some of those things (in the play) actually happened,” Kramer said. “When Loman talked about taking his sons on the road with him, I would go with my dad on school breaks. He would take me out to the little towns, and I got to see how he operated and his values.”

Years later, Kramer would look to “Death of a Salesman” once again.

“When (my father) died in 2000, I was reminded of the play, and I went out and bought a copy of it,” Kramer shared. “I used a particular speech from it in my dad’s eulogy.”

The play, which won a Pulitzer Prize for Drama and a Tony Award for Best Play in 1949, is Gaslight Theatre Company’s first show of 2012. The production will take place at the Mellow Theater in Scranton Thursday-Sunday, Jan. 5-8.

Having been involved on Gaslight’s board of directors and in the spotlight as an actor in the past, Kramer couldn’t have picked more of a challenge to take the helm of. Miller’s play is full of flashbacks and Willy’s hallucinations, something that isn’t easy to relay live on stage.

In essence, the core cast — John Sherrick as Willy, Matthew Hinton (Happy), Billy Joe Herbert (Biff) and Carol Warholak Sweeney as Willy’s wife, Linda — play two versions of their characters, in the present and from the past.

“One of my key jobs is helping the audience at all times be aware of where we are,” Kramer explained, referring to the flashbacks, some of which span 15 years. “We’ll be doing that with lighting and sound and costuming and musical themes for various characters.”

In rehearsals, Kramer found conveying the play’s intensity “not that hard, and it is at the same time. Emotion plays well and relatively easy, but the emotions can get away from us.

“For a first-time director, it’s probably not that smart to have your debut with something of this emotion,” Kramer continued with a chuckle. “But I wanted to do it, one, because of my personal connection to it, and the other, more important reason being right now is a time in our history that this story needs to be told. It’s so relevant to what the country is going through. … As we look at the conditions now and look back to the conditions that inspired ‘Death of a Salesman,’ they’re the same.”