Death of a Salesman
Erik Haagensen
March 15, 2012: Elia Kazan is reputed to have said that 90 percent of directing is casting, and the other 10 percent is fixing the mistakes made in casting. I don’t know if Mike Nichols subscribes to that theory, but inappropriate casting has blown a hole in his loving revival of Arthur Miller’s classic drama “Death of a Salesman” (originally helmed, of course, by Kazan, in 1949). It’s not that rising film star Andrew Garfield lacks theater chops; it’s clear from his earnest performance that he can hold a stage. What the exceedingly youthful 28-year-old can’t do, alas, is bring the requisite dried-up boyishness to 34-year-old Biff Loman, the rebellious elder son of the title character. Garfield is much more convincing as a 17-year-old in the play’s many flashbacks. In the present he barely seems to have aged, and Biff’s disillusionment comes off as whiny self-pity. As the character is the work’s antagonist, this affects all the main players. Without a compelling Biff, you haven’t got a show, and though Miller’s masterwork still has power, at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre that power is diluted.
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