(OUTview NW) RE-view: Artswest's Season of Substance, ends with the 'Heartbreaking' SALESMAN!

Thankful for no more traveling! (Brunk)

by MK Scott

This was quite an Arthur Miller season, having started at Seattle Rep last fall with a View from the Bridge to Artswest closing its "roller coaster" season  of substance with Miller's American Classic, Death with a Salesman . 

They say that Willy Lohman is one of the best characters that every character actor will play eventually. In this he isn't really sympathetic as well as his 2 sons, only Mrs. Lohman has any rooting value.

So, Artswest delivers this classic, thanks to director, Matthew Wright and including a FAB performance by Seattle legend, David Pichette as Willy, the aging salesman who wastes his life and humiliates himself to pay off his house payments for his family. The guilt and pain is so overwhelming that his family ignores all the signs of his depression.

a Man with his sons!    (Brunk)

His son, Biff (the Fab, Drew Highlands, last reviewed in Luna Gale) idolizes his father and is thrown by the reality of his Dad's mistress (Emily Jo Testa).Yes, Really!


And then there’s Happy (the amazing, Kyle Anton Johnson) who is just like his Dad, looking for that fast buck and believing it will find him a good woman and the high life and refusing to live in reality until there is no going back.

Mrs Lohman (plays it like a pro, Eleanor Mosely) faces the sad reality with her head up high and proudly says at her husband's grave (symbolizing 2 suitcases), that it was she that paid the final amount on the family home and her strength keeps the audience on the edge of your seat, heartbreak.

 Artswest Playhouse's Death of a Salesman, continues through May 29 in West Seattle, click HERE for Tix!