Review: Salesman 之死 Tells the Story of Arthur Miller in China

Do you accept an invitation to direct a play in Beijing when you don’t speak a word of Chinese? You do when you’re Arthur Miller and the play is your masterpiece Death of a Salesman. Miller traveled to China in 1983 to direct the Chinese-language premiere of Salesman at the Beijing People’s Art Theater (popularly known as “Renyi”). He wrote about the experience in a book that was published a year later. That story is the basis for Jeremy Tiang’s fascinating and challenging new bilingual drama Salesman 之死, which is now making its off-Broadway debut with Yangtze Repertory Theatre (in association with Gung Ho Projects) at the Connelly Theater.

Performed in Mandarin with English subtitles (but also English with Mandarin subtitles), Salesman 之死 opens with a meeting between stage star Ying Ruocheng (Lydia Jialu Li) and little-known academic Shen Huihui (Jo Mei). Ying wants Shen to interpret for Arthur Miller (Sonnie Brown) during the rehearsal process for Death of a Salesman. Shen wrote her university thesis on Miller, and there’s arguably no greater authority in China on the playwright’s work. But she has little experience interpreting live and thinks Ying would be better suited to the task since he did the Mandarin translation for Salesman. “I won’t have time,” he retorts. “I’m playing the lead.”

When Miller arrives, Shen must learn how to sensitively interpret the words of a demanding playwright-director to star actors like Zhu Lin (Sandia Ang) and Mi Tiezeng (Claire Hsu), who have settled into a house style that is unsuited to Miller’s vision. Then there’s designer Huang (the hilarious Julia Gu), who has put a lot of effort into selecting wigs and makeup to make the cast look more American (read: white). “I fear I may be ruffling a few feathers,” Miller says after he forbids whiteface and watches the designer stomp off with blonde wig in hand. The typical bedlam of a short rehearsal process with limited trust among the creatives is exacerbated by language and cultural barriers. It’s a tiny miracle from Dionysus that this production was a roaring success.

This isn’t just because Miller’s drama is universal, as he so often claimed (although my companion for the evening, who grew up speaking Chinese, told me that the confrontation between Willy Loman and his son Biff has never cut him as deeply as it did here). Salesman 之死, is the story of artists wisely choosing their battles. Multiple times, Zhu Lin interprets Salesman as an exposé of “the lies of capitalism,” and no one bothers to dispute this flattening of a much more complicated play. Similarly, when Miller makes a comment about how McCarthyism (the impetus for his play, The Crucible) sprung from the same dark human impulse as China’s Cultural Revolution, Ying dissuades Shen from translating that observation to the larger group. Why get into a conflict that will just divert time and energy away from the play? So what if Miller was invited due to his perceived affinity for Communism? The end result was that one of the great American dramas of the 20^th century was presented to acclaim on a Chinese stage. It’s a lesson many of today’s theatermakers ought to take to heart.

Tiang never shies away from the complexity of this story, while still providing a sturdy and fast-moving structure for Michael Leibenluft’s clear and efficient staging. The sound of a woodblock marks the passage of time (sound by Kai-Luen Liang and Da Xu) as the first rehearsal speeds toward opening night. Chika Shimzu’s set takes full advantage of the depth of the Connelly to show us rehearsal space and a backstage view of the house of the Renyi, all precisely lit by Daisy Long. Karen Boyer’s costumes offer a taste of early-’80s fashion in China (love those ill-fitting metallic jackets). The final layer is Cinthia Chen’s projections, which bring scenes from the real 1983 Beijing production into the theater, as well as an interview with the real Shen Huihui. Tiang and Leibenluft bring us into the rehearsal room and make us witnesses to an important moment in theater history.

The ensemble cast warmly captures the distinct humanity undergirding that endeavor — the ego and impatience, but also the anxiety that comes with doing anything worthwhile. Brown easily conveys the authority of the veteran American playwright, but in silent pauses seems to betray his real thoughts: What am I doing in a country where barely anyone knows my plays, directing a production in a language I don’t understand? Visibly, painfully nervous at first, Mei’s Shen undergoes a transformation as she gets a crash course in theater production and thrives in the chaos. Salesman 之死 is a love letter to Shen and all the unsung heroes who toil far below the title to make a show a success.