Director Joe Mantello was keenly aware that Broadway had recently experienced a “wonderful production” (his words) of “Death of a Salesman” just four years ago. So if he was going to do it, there had to be a reason. That reason lied in the visual world of the play. As Mantello previously told Broadway News, he was interested in the abstraction at the heart of Arthur Miller’s text. But he would need a team of top-notch designers to make such a physical manifestation of that abstraction hold the heft of this American classic.
Mantello found those co-conspirators, including scenic designer Chloe Lamford and lighting designer Jack Knowles. Lamford conjured a space that could serve as a liminality between protagonist Willy Loman’s idealized past and grim present — centered not around a house, as so many other “Saleman”s but around a car. Knowles filled her abstract set with light that communicates not only a sense of place (inside or outside, day or night, past or present) but Willy’s emotion. Both Lamford and Knowles are now Tony Award nominees for their respective designs for “Death of a Salesman.”
Here, they discussed the inspiration behind the groundbreaking designs, their collaboration with Mantello and each other and the details that imbue the story audiences have picked up on.
Joe mentioned that a big part of his approach was returning to what he saw as the abstraction within Arthur Miller’s text and that the scenic design would need to be simple and conceptual for that reason. Where did that set your starting point?
Chloe Lamford: I feel like we started with the death of Willy and this grave image [because] the subtitling of the play is “Certain Private Conversations and Requiem.” And we started off thinking about earth in a theater space. Then we landed in this mind space that was the garage — that the vessel of the play was his mind, but it’s holding objects. It was a place he could conjure his sons. And it felt like this relic of the car, being one from [Willy’s] past, gives this space of his dreams — and they’re fading into the theater and disappearing as he’s grappling with this moment, which is the end of his life. So it is dark and deep and portentous and all of these things, but it’s like we’re in his mind with him. It’s emotional space, and it’s subjective and poetic. It felt really important that it was poetic.
Do you recall the moment you settled on the overarching image of the set as a garage with a car parked center stage?
Lamford: It happened so sneakily because we were looking at this much more abstracted space, and I put this metal shutter [accordian door] in it that I really loved. I think it came from that — that we suddenly we gave everything a flavor of garage. It’s impossibly big, and it has these pillars that go off into the furthest recesses of his mind.
Jack, when it comes to an abstract piece, does lighting work overtime? The more abstract, the more demanding lighting is — or is that a false equivalency?
Jack Knowles: I want to say that’s a false equivalency, partly because most of what I do is abstract, but I’d say the starting point is always emotion and feeling. How you want the audience to respond and how you can create environments to allow actors to access emotions and go to really deep, serious places and take the audience with them. Almost every space needs a different feeling. So whilst we go from place to place — the kitchen, outside, into the house, the boys’ room — there’s a change of energy, emotion and intent that we’re supporting. If we were in a naturalistic set with bedroom here and bedroom there, we’d be facilitating scene changes and the emotion would still be the heart of what we’re trying to create.
The way Joe has staged Willy’s memories, not really as memories but concurrences — as Miller described them — blends past and present so seamlessly. How does the lighting facilitate that smoothness?
Knowles: The concurrences thing is so key in thinking about the show — not thinking of them as going into memory. These moments are happening at the same time in Willy’s head. So the open abstract space that gave us this huge expanse of mind allowed us to flick through, almost like flicking through a gallery book of images. It’s really about staying emotionally invested throughout without adding unnecessary air to the piece.
Lamford: It’s such a cool thing that you do, Jack, which is that you can flick between states, but make the space look outside and then it’ll flick and it will become inside. That’s so magic.
