Death of a Salesman:Donnie Laflamme bathes the production in his electrifying presence.
Donnie Laflamme as Willy Loman. Photo. Alvina Ruprecht
Willy Loman is the ultimate tragic hero of the contemporary American stage. His appearance in 1949 confirmed Arthur Miller as one of America’s greatest playwrights of the post-war period along with Tennessee Williams and Eugene O’Neil. The Chamber Theatre of Hintonburg has always been drawn to the special kind of expressionist laced realism of American theatre. Their production of Miller’s A View From the Bridge two years ago(at the Elmdale Tavern) won a CCC best professional actor award for Donnie Laflamme whose performance of the emotionally tortured father, was almost unbearable to behold .
As Willy Loman, we again see and feel the intensity, the volcanic energy, the physical transformations that reveal the suffering of this father who is trying desperately to create a delusional world around himself and his family that convinces them all he is able to realize the American dream as the ultimate salesman. The play is heartbreaking, moving, physically exhausting even for the audience, and a moment of wonderful theatre. Donnie Laflamme resurrects Willy Loman and breathes life into the character, again showing us his extreme lsensitivity as an actor, his attention to detail, his emotional range and all the facets of his enormous talent that takes us seamlessly from the scenes “in his head” to his present reality . I am tempted to say that Laflamme carried the show because all the other actors obviously fed off his unbounded energy and no doubt would not have been able to perform the way they did without bathing in Laflamme’s electrifying presence.
There were some special moments that deserve mention. Louis Lemire during his brief appearances as the neighbour Charley , always ready to play cards, brought in a touch of such authenticity that one forgot he was acting. Venetia Lawless was a magnificent breath of fresh, vulgar sensuality that appeared to brighten Willy’s dreary life. The highly tense confrontations between Biff the older son and his father were particularly good and actor Leslie Cserepy captured the suffering he had always been trying to repress, the inner struggle between the person he really wanted to be and the son who was “blown up” by Willy’s myths about being a successful salesman. Happy the younger son (Cory Thibert) also had some very good moments as did Robert Reynolds as Ben, the successful brother who also appeared as a figure of death, enticing Willy on to his dream of success that will ultimately kill him.
Cast as Linda Loman, Willy’s wife, Manon Dumas somehow was less well suited to this role because she was not able to let herself feel her text. She moved awkwardly, she appeared to be too conscientious of herself as an actor; she did not get the emotional nuances of her role and this was particularly obvious in the final scene, the “requiem” where her outburst of rage accompanied her statement about not understanding why he did this. All the bills were paid, there were no more debts, and it made no sense to her. The terrible tragedy comes to greater light at the end where we see that even though Linda spent her life making excuses for Willy, shielding him from a reality that he could not deal with, she was not able to act upon the ambiguities of his delusional behaviour, his tragic flaw that was the real source of his destruction. If she had underplayed that last bit and not been so violent, it would have been so much stronger because it would have made her helplessness much more pronounced. In this case it was the actress, not the character that made me uncomfortable and I do feel she was miscast.
It is also clear that the company was hampered by the small acting space, set up with the audience on either side. There was a lot of apparently unmotivated pacing and moving back and forth that felt as though they were constantly placing themselves strategically so everyone could see them most of the time from both sides of the stage. That distracted from the emotional impact of the play. The fact that the lighting possibilities were limited, also made the staging of the dream-like moments difficult to portray to their fullest. Director Lisa Zanyk and technical director Glen Macintosh, managed them quite well however by using a lot of voice off amplification, music and sound effects; Kristen Saar’s costume changes worked well as did the coming and going of actors at the right moments. The scenes when the action suddenly appeared in the past – Biff’s terrible discovery of Willy’s hidden life, those that even become poetic moments in Willy’s dreams, the moments when Miller’s realism dissolves into expressionist poetry, were very clear in Miller’s text so in spite of awkward staging, the team managed to work it out and there was no confusion at all. There is no doubt however that a larger space, with more sophisticated lighting would have made an enormous difference. This team needs a good healthy infusion of grant money that would allow them to work to their fullest!!
This is an extremely ambitious project given the material limits of the company and the general experience of some of the members of the group. Nevertheless, This is a must see because Arthur Miller is a fundamental presence in the history of American theatre, the production captures the essential meaning of the text and Donnie Laflamme is not to be missed.
Death of a Salesman plays Saturday, the 29th and then three more: April 3, 4 at 6:30pm, April 5 at 5pm.at the Carleton Tavern on Parkdale, then Southminster United Church (Aylmer Ave. and Bank St. South ) on April 25 and the Black Sheep Inn, Wakefield on May 1.
Written by Arthur Miller,
Directed by Lisa Zanyk
Light, sound design Glen Macintosh
Costume design: Kristen Saar
Cast:
Donne Laflamme Willy Loman
Manon Dumas Linda Loman
Leslie Cserepy Biff Loman
Cory Thibert Happy Loman
Math Smith Bernard
Venetia Lawless The Woman
Louis Lemire Charley
Jeff Leiper Howard
Robert Raynolds Ben
Charlie Ebbs The waiter
Jennifer Vawer Miss Forsythe
Emily Carvell Letta