‘Death of a Salesman’ Director o Nathan Lane Revival, Scott Rudin

Willy Loman — washed up, beaten down and trying to ride a little longer on a smile and a shoeshine before he’s kicked to the curb — has been a staple of Broadway since Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” first electrified audiences in 1949 with its searing portrait of uncaring capitalism. There have been seven productions in all, offering up very different takes on the titular salesman — from volcanic (Brian Dennehy, George C. Scott), to intensely deranged (Lee J. Cobb), to mournful (Philip Seymour Hoffman, Wendell Pierce), to self-deluded and scrappy (Dustin Hoffman).

But there’s never been a “Death of a Salesman” quite like the current Broadway production directed by Joe Mantello and starring Nathan Lane and Laurie Metcalf. Not only do Lane and Metcalf, who plays Linda Loman, offer unique interpretations of their iconic characters — Lane exudes the desperation of a flailing vaudevillian, with one critic likening his performance to a “song-and-dance man, after the music stops,” and Metcalf’s Linda is shrewder and steelier than other versions — but Mantello’s abstract staging also breaks dramatically with tradition. This “Salesman” unfolds entirely in a cavernous, smoke-filled garage, complete with a 1964 Chevy Chevelle. It very clearly takes place inside Willy’s fractured mind, as memories of the stolen promise of his sons (Christopher Abbott, Ben Ahlers) collide with his deteriorating financial situation. It’s haunting, brilliant and seemingly destined to rack up Tony nominations.

Mantello, a Tony-winning director whose credits include “Wicked” to “The Humans,” admits that bringing the Loman clan to life took a lot out of him. The show opened last month, and he’s been spending time in California to recharge.

“I’m just trying to make sense of what we all just went through,” Mantello says via Zoom. “It’s the most challenging thing I’ve ever done. You have to rise to the level of the play. And this is a great play. I left feeling inspired, but also I need to shut down for a little bit.”

Mantello spoke to Variety about his radical reinterpretation of “Salesman,” casting Lane and Metcalf, and his decision to work with controversial producer Scott Rudin on this revival as well as “Little Bear Ridge Road,” an acclaimed Steppenwolf play that transferred to Broadway last fall.

I’ve seen four productions of “Death of a Salesman” on Broadway, but this is the most distinctive and dramatically reimagined. How did you come up with the idea of staging it in a garage and having Willy’s car play such a prominent role?

I’ve always seen it as a very abstract play, primarily because I think that’s how Mr. Miller envisioned it. And though there have been many extraordinary productions that have come along since the original, I have never personally seen one that leans into the abstraction in the same way. There have been some pretty great productions in the last 15 or 20 years. But the question is always, if you’re going to do a new “Death of a Salesman,” you have to figure out how to add to the conversation and to this lineage of shows that have gone before us. I worked closely with Chloe Lamford, our designer, and things just evolved over the course of a year. We went down lots of dead ends, but we just kept going back to the script and taking our cues from that. Every time we looked at the text, we were amazed at how often a car is referenced. That became a central image for us. Then that car needed a context, a kind of a shell for the for the world of the play to exist within, so we came up with the garage.

Why do you think Miller keeps referencing Willy’s car?

It’s a very American aspirational symbol.

Do you see the garage as a metaphor for Willy’s mind?

Our guiding light was it is all taking place in his mind. We were trying to capture the synapses in his brain so you could go very, very quickly from one scene to another, and to hold these two time periods simultaneously — moving between his present day problems and the scenes with Biff and Happy as teenagers. The helpful thing was to read that Miller didn’t refer to those scenes in the past as flashbacks; he called them concurrences. They aren’t really happening in the past. They’re happening at the same time. That stripped the entire production of nostalgia. And that influenced our design decisions. The type of automobile we chose isn’t from the era the play was written. In the scene with Willy and his boss, where Howard is listening to a reel-to-reel tape recorder, he’s dressed in a contemporary way and he’s got a cup that almost looks like it’s from Starbucks.

Howard almost seems like somebody who would be firing somebody today, not somebody who would be firing somebody in 1949. The economy’s not so hot and a lot of people are getting laid off right now. Was that something you were alluding to?

Great plays always have a timeless quality. When Miller wrote this, it was a new, contemporary play that spoke to its audience. So, can you remove that lens of 1949? Is there a way the play can speak to audiences in 2026? We interrogated it and thought, ‘If we were doing this today, and we knew nothing about this play, how would we do it?’ There’s nothing musty about the play. In fact, when we were working on it, we all kept saying to ourselves, ‘It feels so modern.’ The dialogue feels so modern. That’s what makes it endure.

What made you think of Nathan Lane? He’s so different than some of the recent Willy’s like Brian Dennehy or Philip Seymour Hoffman.

I worked with Nathan for the first time over 30 years ago on “Love! Valour! Compassion!,” and I made a passing comment to him: “One day I’m going to direct you as Willy Loman in ‘Death of a Salesman.’” We both remembered it and would chuckle about it over the years. At the time, I was still mostly an actor. I didn’t even really consider myself to be a director, and Nathan was probably in his 30s. He was no one’s idea of Willy Loman. I don’t know if it was a premonition or just an instinctual response to something that I intuited about the play. We’re both still kind of baffled by it, but it really was this thing that we would revisit over the years. Then the two of us worked with Laurie on David Mamet’s “November,” and we had great time. We were simpatico. So we brought her into the fold. All of a sudden, the time was right. The three of us had enough experience behind us to tackle it.

When you say experience, do you mean personal or professional?

Both. I don’t think I would have been ready to do this play even 10 or 15 years ago.

So many great actors have played Willy. Did that intimidate Nathan?

My sense was that it did. He did feel a pressure to honor the role. But he also understood that some titans of the American theater had come before him, and it was his time up to bat. We were in previews, and we were trying to figure out a moment, and I said to Nathan, “I saw Dennehy do it. I saw what this moment was with Dennehy. I saw Dustin Hoffman do it. I’m only interested in your version of it.” There isn’t one way to play this role. You can unpack it in many different ways.

Did Laurie’s approach to playing Linda surprise you? Were there notes she hit that were unexpected?

I knew she was going to strip any sentimentality out of it. One of the first things that she does with a script is she removes any stage directions, any hints from the author about the emotional state of the character. For whatever reason, that is not useful to her. She wants the thing boiled down to its essence, and then she starts to build from there. She’s just looking for clues. I love that she and Nathan created characters who are very much equal partners in this relationship. They have this moment in the beginning of the second act where they realize that the mortgage is finally going to be paid off, and it’s not only Willie’s victory, it’s their shared victory.

The biggest difference is probably how Laurie plays the final requiem. When Linda says, “I can’t cry now,” Miller writes at the end of her speech, she’s sobbing. But Laurie was interested in the idea of taking those lines at face value. So there’s real emotion, but she doesn’t dissolve into tears.

Watching this revival, I was struck by how badly Willy’s image of success has warped his sons.

One of the interesting things in this production is you feel this is not just Willy’s tragedy, it’s a tragedy for that entire family who all bought into this lie, and it has destroyed all of them. I do think in some way, Biff escapes it at the end, and he has a kind of an epiphany. But because you see the sons as kids and they’re played by different actors, you see all of that love and adoration that they have for their father in those scenes. He loves them too, and with Biff, you realize he’s not crazy to believe in him. This is a magic kid. The way that Chris plays the older version, he’s got this unpredictable danger about him. Chris has incredible chemistry with Ben. They became friends almost instantly after Ben was cast. They’d go and see the Knicks and hang out together. You feel that kind of closeness of brothers. There’s a dynamic there that I can carve things out of. But if that chemistry isn’t there, I can’t provide it.

Both this play and your other production this season with Laurie Metcalf, “Little Bear Ridge Road,” were produced by Scott Rudin. They mark his comeback after he stepped back from producing following numerous allegations of abusive behavior with employees. Why did you decide to work with him again?

I would be lying if I said it wasn’t tricky or that I didn’t grapple with making that decision. [Pause.] Without sharing private conversations, I will say I do believe in accountability, and I think Scott has spoken about taking responsibility. We talked about that, too. I believe in second chances. I know other people don’t share that belief, and that’s their right.

Based on your experiences working with Scott on the two plays, has his behavior changed? Has he been worthy of the second chance you gave him?

In my experience, he has. I don’t know if you read the profile of Laurie in the New Yorker, but as far as what the anonymous source from Steppenwolf says, it kind of flattens the nuance of the situation and it tells a story that, in my experience, is not true. When we did “Little Bear” at Steppenwolf, it was the biggest single ticket seller in Steppenwolf’s history, so we were eager to bring it to Broadway and New York. Lots of producers came down to see it, and lots of producers said, “I love it. It’s not a Broadway show.” I understand that. But at a certain point, the clock was ticking, and Steppenwolf kept saying, “We have options. We have options.” But ultimately, they weren’t able to deliver on that promise. At the same time, Scott said, “I’m throwing my hat in the ring. If you have anyone else, go with them. Just know that I’m standing by if you don’t find anyone.”

What bothered me about the New Yorker piece is that it made it seem like Laurie gave them an ultimatum [to hand over the rights], and that was not true. She was trying to find a path forward. When it became clear there were no other options, she made her case to the board, and they said ‘Absolutely not.’ That affected her, and she felt disrespected as one of the founding members who continually came back to Chicago because she’s so appreciative of the support that Chicago audiences have shown for work. And then they quote this anonymous source who says they were taking an ethical stand by not being involved. But that’s not how it was discussed at the time and behind the scenes, Steppenwolf’s co-artistic director Glenn Davis said to us, “I think Scott Rudin is the best producer for this play. We just can’t be the first to work with him.” That’s not an ethical position. That’s an optical position.

[David Rosenberg, a spokesperson for Steppenwolf, said, “We are not sure where this is coming from. I can confirm that no one on leadership at Steppenwolf said this.”]

You really emphasized the word “anonymous” there. Does it bother you that the quote, “It didn’t feel in alignment with our values and mission that [Rudin] would come back on Steppenwolf’s name,” was provided anonymously?

Of course it does because that removes any nuance. Then you can’t say, ‘Did this person have an agenda?’ Or ‘does this person have unimpeachable credentials?’ in which case, put your name behind your quote. I’m telling you the truth about how I feel about working with Scott, and my name is going to be on what I say. It was interesting that it was the only anonymous source in the entire piece. My question is, why?

Just before COVID shut down Broadway, you were directing Laurie Metcalf and Rupert Everett in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.” It closed during previews and never had a proper run. Would you ever try to re-stage that production?

I really feel like I had my time with it and with that particular company. Like “Salesman,” it was a freaking hard play. We were still trying to figure out that third act when we closed. We only did nine performances. It would be hard for me to return to it just because when you’re done, you’re sort of done. It will come back to Broadway, of course. Just with someone else directing.