REVIEW: Stratford Festival’s Death of a Salesman is stark and melancholy

The Stratford Festival’s 2026 production of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman arrives not with a gentle flute, but a jazz trumpet.

Played by a figure (Michael Louis Johnson) who provides pre-show commentary and warns us to turn off our anachronistic cell phones, the trumpet delivers a brash rendition of Irving Berlin’s “Blue Skies.” It’s a motif that will recur often over the course of three hours, providing an aural reminder of the bustling cityscape that has sprung up to dwarf the Loman household, the urbanization and anonymization that become too much for its patriarch, travelling salesman Willy (Tom McCamus), to handle.

It replaces the famous flute refrain called for in the stage directions that represents Willy’s idealized past and the instruments his father used to make, as though even Miller’s stage fantasy itself is ironically being forced to make way for something more urgent and modern.

While Salesman purists may sniff at flouting the flute, there’s a lot to admire in director Dean Gabourie’s stark, melancholy version with a hint of brass. The relatively straightforward production is aesthetically austere, but strong central performances of the family at its core keep it heartbreakingly human.

Framing the stage of the Avon Theatre on three sides, Scott Penner’s set of large, encroaching buildings resembles a panopticon jail observing the household; one out-of-reach window displays a trophy to symbolize the family’s deferred dreams. Louise Guinand’s lighting is moody and dim, its darkness and gloom deliberately contrasting the aural fantasy of blue skies.

In Salesman, Willy drifts into damaging daydreams, shifting like an unwieldy car to ignore the realities of his family’s failures as Miller deftly exposes the hypocrisies in his characters’ thought processes. McCamus makes Willy coherent even in incoherence as Willy tries to protect his loved ones from ruin, playing with the dizzying inconsistencies and finding vibrations in the quantum state of being simultaneously sure and unsure of reality.

In one flashback, Willy extols the virtues of his Chevy and refrigerator, praising their parent companies and their large advertisements, only to bitterly complain about the machines moments later when the bills come due. He vacillates between praising his eldest son Biff (Liam Tobin) and damning him with the same language. McCamus starts the scene full of pride, boasting about his sales, only to deflate into a small, bitter ball alongside the rapidly shrinking numbers he reports.

McCamus draws a clear parallel between Willy’s feelings of not being heard in the business world and his constant dismissive shutdowns of his wife Linda’s attempts to communicate, behaving like a mistreated animal that turns around and attacks its littermate. However, as Linda, Lucy Peacock is no shrinking violet; Willy may be the flashy role, but Peacock holds the play together. Linda is afraid, but Peacock’s prevailing emotional state is crackling anger in the face of helplessness. Linda rages at her sons for abandoning their father, Peacock implacable in the face of their protestations as she shoves them toward the door.

The behaviour of Willy’s sons is also a clear reaction to their upbringing. In seeking his father’s approval, Happy (Josh Johnston) recreates his father’s delusions, Johnston leaning into the glib people-pleasing personality with a vacuous smile. While trying to be anything but his father, Biff loses himself but tastes the same failure; Tobin’s notable performance crackles with the frustration of a man who peaked in high school.

The last family member shows up only in Willy’s flashbacks, as the set splits to reveal his older brother Ben (David W. Keeley), an imposingly tall and successful figure whose echoing voice reverberates through the theatre as he trails Willy like an overbearing ghost. Keeley’s height forces McCamus to constantly look up to him both metaphorically and literally, Ben’s crisp white suit a beacon in the relative darkness.

The cohesive family unit of the Lomans’ neighbours, Charley (Matthew Kabwe, radiating warmth) and his son Bernard (a quietly dignified Raymond Strachan), lends poignancy as a counterpoint. Charley’s increasingly pointed offers of financial help and Bernard’s humble surety about his career success underscore the show’s message that actions speak louder than words, magnifying Willy’s indignity and the tragedy he self-inflicts to recover from the wound.

The power of the family scenes overshadows another pivotal moment, where Willy confronts the next generation of business, in the shape of his former boss’ unfeeling son (Sean Arbuckle) who Willy’s seen grow from infant to company manager. This scene feels particularly small on the expansive stage and could sizzle more in order to further emphasize Willy’s various abortive bargaining tactics.

In his essay “Tragedy and the Common Man,” Miller defines tragedy as “the consequence of a man’s total compulsion to evaluate himself justly.”

Willy may see nothing but blue skies, but on the trumpet, we hear a herald of doom.

Death of a Salesman runs at Stratford’s Avon Theatre until October 24. More information is available here.

Intermission reviews are independent and unrelated to Intermission’s partnered content. Learn more about Intermission’s partnership model here.

WRITTEN BY

Ilana Lucas

Ilana Lucas is a professor of English in Centennial College’s School of Advancement. She is the President of the Canadian Theatre Critics Association. She holds a BA in English and Theatre from Princeton University, an MFA in Dramaturgy and Script Development from Columbia University, and serves as Princeton’s Alumni Schools Committee Chair for Western Ontario. She has written for Brit+Co, Mooney on Theatre, and BroadwayWorld Toronto. Her most recent play, Let’s Talk, won the 2019 Toronto Fringe Festival’s 24-Hour Playwriting Contest. She has a deep and abiding love of musical theatre, and considers her year working for the estate of Tony winners Phyllis Newman and Adolph Green one of her most treasured memories.

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