I remember my acting coach telling me about seeing Death of a Salesman on Broadway when it opened. He went into the bathroom during intermission, and he saw all these men in suits lined up. He felt a palpable silence. It was a silence that felt full of meaning, though he didn’t know then what the meaning was. 1949 was the height of the post-war economic boom. Youngstown was thriving. Many cities were thriving across the country. The economy was so successful, that it seemed that every family would have a chance to own a house with a two car garage. Even those from a modest background felt a sense of economic opportunity. The idea of suburbs came into existence. The idea that we needed to build homes for all these families. The desire to escape the inner city planted itself deep, and houses were built to accommodate this. Boardman started strip development in 1950, a year after this play was produced.
I wish I could ask those who saw the play in 1949 what it meant to them. But I can venture a guess. At the height of economic prosperity, the American theatre releases a tragedy about a salesman named Willy Loman who believes that his charm and relationships will equate to economic success. He is depicted as a man groping for success at every corner. And when he fails, he consoles himself with tall tales, outright lies which he lives, and delivers to his children. At the center of this character, the audience sees an almost unbearable loneliness. A loneliness of being a Salesman. A loneliness of betraying himself and his family – cheating on his wife, encouraging his sons to cheat, lie, and get ahold of opportunity any way they can. He envies his brother Ben who finds gold in Africa, the place where all humankind originates from. Death of a Salesman is a powerful and painful play. It’s about loneliness. It’s about working so hard to maintain the appearance of success while you feel hollow inside. I don’t know what that silence meant in 1949, but I wonder if that has something to do with it.
The most powerful part of the play for me is when Biff, Willy’s son delivers a monologue about stealing his boss’s pen. As a grown man, he catches himself running down the flights of stairs with this pen in hand, and he sees how hollow his ambitions have become. He works toward things he doesn’t even really want, because he is afraid of what others will think. He wants his father’s approval. He tells his father: “I’m no good.” He fails to get the loan he asks for to start his own business, and his response is to steal, to steal something out of a sense that he’s owed something. Stealing the pen is the last straw. The pen represents a cheap prize for a life squandered in pursuit. Most of us would probably say to someone who says “I’m no good,” that you shouldn’t talk that way about yourself. But I think this is important for Biff. In the life he’s living he’s no good to himself, he’s no good to his family, and he’s no good to his community. In stating a truth like this in a family that tells each other lies to avoid a sense of failure, it is a breakthrough. Biff doesn’t die at the end of the play. Willy, his father does.
It is a play I return to probably at least once a year. I’ve done this since high school. It was actually reading this play that first excited me about becoming an actor. It was a story that led me in part to move to New York City. I felt a calling to embody a story like this, to offer dignity and compassion and truth to the struggle of characters in distress. To accompany them. To offer courage to a nation in distress.
Since the production of this play nearly 70 years ago, the economic landscape has changed dramatically. We are living examples of this. We are the inheritors of economic development that has primarily focused on the outskirts of cities, leaving the inner city other than a few blocks downtown to deteriorate and close. Today, Death of a Salesman is not a shocking play. It is almost quaint. At least in 1949 they had the illusion that success or upward economic mobility was possible.
It is still part of our imagining to wonder how equal economic opportunity may be possible. As a nation we are hungry for alternatives, and Youngstown is one of the most hungry places I know. I sense there is a new kind of attention being paid. It is a kind of attention that is not fatalistic and has curbed some of the cynicism of the last two decades. It is beginning to peek through in simple and transformative ways. I believe our church is a kind of lighting rod, a conductor, for this new kind of attention that must be paid.
I know many of you struggle financially. I know some of you work long hours at more than one job, or are searching for work to supplement your incomes. I know you’re not doing this to cushion your savings account or save for retirement, which should be your right. I know you’re just trying to pay your heating bill over the next couple months now that it’s gotten cold. Many are trying to stay just one step ahead of eviction or utility shut off. It is difficult to cultivate a sense of what may be possible when you’re just trying to survive, or when you’re witness to those in our community who are constantly put in the position of taking one step forward, two steps back. It doesn’t take much to push a person toward despair when their car is impounded, and they’re walking home to a cold house.
Not everyone of course is in this dire straits. It’s just important that we’re honest, and ask ourselves one question regardless of our economic circumstance: Are we leading our community toward death or toward life? Death of a Salesman is about a man in a society that has led him to his death. It is a society that doesn’t pay attention to those who most desperately need it. Again, this awareness is growing in our nation. Our material environment impacts our spiritual lives. We must cultivate a sense of how economics fits into our understanding of mercy and justice. We must ask ourselves if our economic systems and theories are based on compassion, or if they are a deviation. Death of a Salesman gives us one answer to this question, and it’s an answer we must contend with as we venture forth in 2020.
The question of personhood in relation to economics is a fundamental religious question. And it’s not abstract. It’s one of the things we are blessed to know in Youngstown. It can become so easy to ignore in other segregated environments. It doesn’t take much for us to hear Miller’s words playing out on Elm Street, on the South side, throughout our city – attention must be paid. It is not just attention that is needed. Attention on its own can just make us feel depressed, hopeless, like bystanders to a crime we can’t stop from happening. The kind of attention we need is tied to a vision and path of personhood. A vision and a path that we can live every day. A vision and a path that sees inherent worth and dignity in every suffering person. This is what we’re doing here – to cultivate and sustain this vision through practice. A vision of life not death. A vision that gives us life, and gives our community life. A vision for those who are stealing themselves away from what is rightfully theirs. A life that sees there is dignity, even in a lowly salesman.
