It is systematic, and it is far more powerful, more insidiousness than the personal failings that Loman believes have arrested his self-determination. Racism (alongside the effects of capitalism) is not an internal struggle. But in this production, there is a fundamental failure to examine the mutuality between capitalism and anti-black racism in America (see: transatlantic slavery).

This is what makes Death of a Salesman so timeless and in many ways, universal. The American Dream is of course capitalism’s most beguiling surrogate, and its fallacious nature dooms most who attempt it (the few who succeed probably cheated anyway). He is consumed by the personal delusions and intimate lies that are required to sustain the God-Trickof The American Dream but ultimately undermine his capacity to achieve it. Loman’s deteriorating mental and physical health struggles are primarily presented as internal. The refusal to investigate the role of race in achieving the American Dream begs the question – why bother casting a black family at all? Co-directed by Miranda Cromwell and Olivier award-winning director Marianne Elliot, I was thrilled to learn that Miller’s seminal work would be staged with Wendell Pierce taking on the role of ageing salesman Willy Loman and feature a black family at its centre. The Young Vic’s revival of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman uses colour conscious casting to disappointing effect.

Death of a salesman bbc