Monday, July 11, 2011

Videos of Death of a Salesman






The picture above is from the original 1949 performance of Death of a Salesman.  Lee J. Cobb was Willy, Arthur Kennedy was Biff, and Cameron Mitchell played Happy.  Cobb later appeared in CBS' 1966 movie for television.  

See this link for a picture from that later production:  

The 1985 Death of a Salesman is harder to find, so I will send you a few other versions, starting with a 1951 version that Arthur Miller did *not* approve of!


Avery Brooks starred in a 2008 production at Oberlin College.  (He and the director Justin Emeka are both Oberlin alums.)


Starting with this YouTube, Brooks and Emeka discuss the production:




In 2009, Charles S. Dutton played Willy in Yale Rep's version:


Brian Dennehy played Willy in 2000.  This TV movie appeared on Showtime, another of our premium channels:




These pictures are from a 2005 production, also starring Dennehy.  This production was staged at London's Lyric Theater.  I think that my sister-in-law may have seen either this version or an earlier one at the Goodman Theater in Chicago.

David Mamet argues that Death of a Salesman is a Jewish play:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2005/may/07/theatre.davidmamet



This version from 1996 is British and appeared on the BBC:


DC's own Arena Stage also had a version of Death of a Salesman as part of an Arthur Miller festival in 2008:

The Ensemble Theater's 2008 version is here.  (This company is Australian.)


I'll close with the Raven Theater Company's 2008/9 version.  This company is based in Chicago.


4 comments:

liliana perez said...

is amazing how many versions of these play exist, I wonder if there is one for, the latino society too, I can picture a lot of willy's nowdays that have not reach their goals or feel somekinf of unsuccesfull in their live.

M. Szlyk said...

This is worth looking for, Lili, and I imagine that we will have a Latino version of Salesman soon, if we don't have one already. :)

Hubert Shiau said...

It's interesting to see so many different interpretations, when having a script would lead one to think that this is just one play. Thanks for sharing!

M. Szlyk said...

You're welcome, Hubert. :) Here's a review of Salesman in Beijing:
http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/11/12/specials/miller-beijing.html

On Monday, I'll bring my copy to class.