Peter Jacobson Photo by T. Charles Erickson

Scenic designer Sara Brown sets the stage with a framework of a house, complete with staircases and landings. The wise choice opens up the stage, providing great depth for actors and props to easily arrive and depart. It's an unobtrusive, clever look and allows for all of the action to occur mid and downstage right before the audience.

Willy Loman (a most distinctive Peter Jacobson) lives in Brooklyn but is on the road to New England where he sells goods. During the opening sequence of the play, he returns home completely fatigued and admitting that he almost crashed his car. His loyal wife Linda (Adrianne Krstansky) thinks Willy (perhaps around 60 years of age) should approach his boss Howard Wagner (Peter Zeller) and ask for a local assignment.

Willy is preoccupied that his son, Biff (Samuel H. Levine), has become a failure at age 34 after a potentially lucrative start to his life. Biff was a high school football star who created his own negative scenario when he could not graduate. Happy (Max Katz) is his younger brother and the siblings experience a reunion, a complicated time itself. Biff evidently overshadowed Happy and both are currently wanting.

The second act of the play finds Willy, with bravado, marching into Howard's office and more or less demanding that his employer revise his position, permitting Willy to stay home and, just as important, not drive. For now, that is all you need to know.

Some of Miller's supporting characters become essential players. Charley (Paul Michael Valley) lives near Willy and at one juncture offers his friend a job. Willy turns it down. Bernard (Stephen Cefalu, Jr.) is Charley's son. Biff and Happy were his teenage contemporaries. During those adolescent years, Bernard was very much the nerd but at present he is a well-respected, articulate attorney. Willy is astonished that it is Bernard who is a thriving professional and a young man now married and raising a family.

Willy Loman is not a bad man who tries to maintain confidence, but he is fretful and anxious. He is destined to be on the road and dependent upon his ability to pitch, hawk, and peddle products to make enough money to exist. Some people have thought Willy to be callous and even vicious. Arthur Miller, speaking of his protagonist, disagreed, once commenting, "The trouble with Willy Loman is that he has tremendously powerful ideals ... The fact is he has values. The fact that they cannot be realized is what is driving him mad–just as, unfortunately, it's driving a lot of other people mad."

Exceptional actors such as Lee J. Cobb, George C. Scott, Dustin Hoffman, Brian Dennehy, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Wendell Pierce and many others have embodied Willy. Nathan Lane has the role for the current Broadway presentation.

Peter Jacobson distinguishes himself as Willy evidences a variety of moods and shifts of mind. He is desperately worried but attempts to conceal his fears and insecurities. He flies into rages with his sons and even at his boss. This Willy is internally furious and he will seize opportunities to verbally explode whenever he can. Jacobson has credits Off0Broadway, at many regional theatre companies, on TV, and in films. His discipline and regard for detail is impressive. His facial expressions indicate just how distraught and despairing he is. The cumulative cast performance is exemplary. Patrick Zeller depicts Howard as a man whose temperament runs the gamut from seemingly kind to explosively mean-spirited. Zeller successfully heightens emotive reaction, in a late scene with Willy, in a single moment of time.

This Salesman works for fans of the play as well as for someone who has little or no knowledge. An individual, sitting next to me, when asked by his friend at intermission, responded that he thought the story to be sad. During the final thirty minutes of the show, tears streamed down this man's face as he watched the conclusion of an Arthur Miller classic.

Death of a Salesman runs through March 29, 2026, at Hartford Stage, 50 Church St., Hartford CT. For tickets and information, please call 860-527-5151 or visit HartfordStage.org.