Posted By Heather Harvey '11
We began working the first scenes of act two from the beginning through the boys meeting with Willy for dinner. Now that we were in the final space, the cast was able to get oriented in the environment a bit more completely, which gave room for a few changes to the blocking and rhythm now that we were spending our first full day in the final space.
We broke for lunch while we were still in the beginning of the dinner scene, and a few of us also stopped by the Africana Community New and Returning Students Picnic and let those who may not have previously known about Death of a Salesman, and more specifically, Justin's concept for this particular production.
When we got back, the cast returned to working on scene five, the scene in which Willy meets his boys for dinner. Although it seems fairly simple in description, it is actually a very complicated and convoluted scene involving breaks in time, flashbacks, more than a few conflicts, but also a handful of seemingly pleasant moments. One could say that this scene is the crux of Death of a Salesman, because it covers nearly every facet of Willy's relationship with his sons and the roles each man plays in relationship to the other. However, we also receive a glimpse into Willy's mind, and more so than some other scenes in which Miller deals with purely cerebral material, these instances from the past inform more of the audience's understanding of the present.