Salesman之死 (play)

Sonnie Brown, Sandia Ang, Claire Hsu
 in "Salesman之死"
(Yangtze Repertory Theatre, 2023)
Photo: Maria Baranova

The most recent issue of American Theatre magazine includes the complete text of Jeremy Tiang’s recent play, Salesman之死* which premiere at the Connelly Theatre on the Lower East Side in 2023.

This was my first introduction to the piece, and I was grateful to read the entire thing. Some ten years ago I read Arthur Miller’s Book, Salesman In Beijing, which were his director’s notes for a production of, well, Salesman in Beijing, in 1983, shortly after the end of the Cultural Revolution.

Yes, Miller directed the play himself, and his book is rich with Miller’s tales of how he was to encourage the performers at the Beijing People's Art Theatre (“Renyi”) to not only replicate but to comprehend this quintessential American drama. His is a story of reaching across a cultural divide to highlight a shared humanity.

Tiang’s script, which dramatizes the rehearsal process of his historic production and is inspired by not only Miller’s book but also extensive interviews with Shen Huihui, who served as Miller’s translator during his time in China, illustrates how the company endeavored to engage with the American style of performance Miller demanded from them, the American playwright had little interest in engaging with theirs.

Mi Tiezeng, Zhu Lin, Li Shilong 
"Death of a Salesman"
(People's Art Theatre, 1983)
Photo: Inge Morath

The Renyi company did the work and learned in a very short period of time what the “American Dream” means to Americans, while Miller was content to be a tourist, observing Chinese performance and customs but holding them at arm’s length, almost in contempt. They were doing the reaching, he was just there to direct his play, his way.

Another play I have recently been introduced to, The Motive and the Cue by Jack Thorne, also a 2023 premiere, dramatizes another historic production, in this case John Gielgud’s 1964 Broadway production of Hamlet, starring Richard Burton. That play is based on two texts, Letters From an Actor by William Redfield, and the ponderously if most accurately entitled John Gielgud Directs Richard Burton in Hamlet (A Journal of Rehearsals) by Richard Sterne.

I was finally able to obtain a copy of Sterne’s book (it took some time to locate an inexpensive edition) and it is an audacious work. Whereas Redfield’s tome is a collection of backstage gossip and high-flown elucidation on the craft by one of the company’s minor players, Sterne’s is an astonishing example of asking for forgiveness rather than permission – cast as a gentleman (at least Redfield’s character has a name) Sterne surreptitiously recorded the entire rehearsal process, even going so far as to hide himself under the set during closed rehearsals to which we was not invited.

Rather than being shamed and/or blackballed, once he had revealed to Gielgud and Burton that he was writing a book, they granted him interviews for inclusion, providing the entire endeavor a gloss of legitimacy.

Richard Burton, John Gielgud
in rehearsal for "Hamlet" in 1964
Photo: Bettmann Archive

There is more of Letter From an Actor in Thorne’s play, as Redfield’s book is a juicy backstage kiss-and-tell, while Sterne’s must be a pretty dry read for anyone not intimately familiar with the text of Hamlet. No internal squabbling between the legendary Gielgud and wildly-famous Burton to be found. In fact, a great deal of Motive hangs on a single quote attributed to Burton; “Don’t you dare give me a line read.” 

He may have said that, but in context it sounds more like a jovial aside than a warning, but Thorne uses that one phrase as the central conflict of his drama – Burton wants to find his own Hamlet, and not to merely replicate Gielgud’s.

Live drama is, after all, about the moment, and not wrote replication of a previous moment. Yes? No?  

While there have been countless fictional backstage dramas – usually comedies, actually – these two works, Salesman and Motive, focusing on two high-profile productions, these I found fascinating, dramatizing as they do the collaborative creative process unique to love performance that makes theater the art form which is central to my own life, and in the case of Salesman之死, a cautionary tale about humility, listening and collaboration.

* 之死 means simply “death of”