★★★★½
There are some theatre experiences that demand a drink afterwards.
Death of a Salesman opened at the Lyric Theatre, QPAC, on a Sunday afternoon, which turned out to be the perfect time to see it. The performance runs for around three hours, giving you just enough time to find somewhere for dinner, order a stiff drink and start talking about what you’ve just witnessed with whoever you came with. Because you will need to talk about it.
I turned 50 this year and, despite having heard of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman for years, I had never actually seen it or read it. My main exposure had been through my son applying to drama schools, where it seems every audition list contains a Biff Loman monologue.
Somehow, I had constructed a completely different idea of what the play was about. I thought it was about a salesman who went to an apartment and something strange happened. How wrong I was.
Upon discovering this production – by GWB Entertainment and Andrew Henry Presents – was directed by Neil Armfield, I was immediately interested. I will never forget seeing Armfield’s The Secret River performed in an outdoor quarry for Adelaide Festival. There are certain directors whose names make you sit up when you see them attached to a production. Neil Armfield is one of those for me.
Then I saw who was playing Willy Loman. Anthony LaPaglia feels almost perfectly cast as Willy. He has the age, physicality, voice and experience to inhabit a man who has spent his entire life trying to convince himself that he has made the right choices.
LaPaglia moves around the stage as though Willy isn’t entirely anchored in the present. He can be coherent one moment, confused the next, then angry and defensive. At times his behaviour is so fractured that my wife genuinely wondered whether he had forgotten his lines. I suspect that was exactly the point.
Willy is a man whose present and past have become hopelessly tangled, and LaPaglia makes that disintegration painful to watch. His performance constantly leaves you wondering whether Willy is depressed, exhausted, deluded or simply beginning to lose his grip on reality.
Alison Whyte is outstanding as Linda Loman. In what could have easily become the supporting character in someone else’s tragedy, Whyte gives Linda a presence that makes her feel like the emotional centre of the Loman home.
She understands Willy better than almost anyone, but there is also something heartbreaking about the extent to which she has invested in keeping his version of reality alive.
Josh Helman as Biff and Ben O’Toole as Happy provide much of the play’s electricity. At times they feel like the central characters, particularly when they are together.
Helman gives Biff a powerful mixture of frustration, anger and vulnerability. This is a young man who has spent his life being told that he is destined for greatness and is slowly coming to the realisation that he may never become the person everyone expected him to be. And that is where Miller’s play becomes incredibly uncomfortable.
Happy, meanwhile, is desperately trying to convince everyone, including himself, that he has made it. He boasts about his success, chases women and constructs a life that sounds impressive until you look closely.
In 2026, it is difficult not to see social media and dating apps in Happy’s behaviour. The curated lives, the constant comparison, the need to demonstrate that everything is going brilliantly. Happy isn’t really himself until the very end.
Marco Chiappi’s turn as Charley is probably my favourite performance of the production. His New York accent is completely convincing, but more importantly, he brings an enormous amount of life to the stage whenever he appears. Charley feels like someone who actually exists outside the Loman family’s bubble, and Chiappi’s warmth makes him immediately likeable.
Anthony Phelan’s Ben Loman is another fascinating directorial choice. Giving Ben an almost otherworldly, booming resonance through a microphone makes him feel like a voice from Willy’s imagination, representing the alternative life Willy believes he could have had. It becomes increasingly significant as Willy’s grip on reality begins to fracture.
The production itself is deceptively simple. Dale Ferguson’s set and costume design don’t attempt to overwhelm the actors, and the bleacher-like structure representing Ebbets Field works beautifully.
Having the wider cast remain present on stage, watching the action and appearing and disappearing around the Lomans, creates the feeling that Willy’s memories, dreams and regrets are constantly surrounding him. The actors occupy the same physical space even when the story moves between different periods of Willy’s life, reinforcing the idea that Willy isn’t simply remembering the past; he is living in it.
But the reason Death of a Salesman still hits so hard more than 75 years after Arthur Miller wrote it is the question at its centre: what happens when we spend our lives trying to become successful rather than trying to become ourselves?
Miller wrote the play in 1949, yet so much of it feels disturbingly contemporary. Willy wants his sons to succeed because he believes success will prove that he was a good father. He keeps searching for the secret formula, wondering what he did wrong and whether one different decision might have changed everything.
That feels remarkably familiar in a world of helicopter parents, elite programs, endless extracurricular activities, and parents desperately trying to discover the secret combination that will guarantee their children a successful future.
How much pressure is fair to place on a child to become successful? And how much of that pressure actually comes from our own fears?
Biff is the person who eventually begins to understand that the life his father wants for him isn’t necessarily the life he wants for himself. His struggle feels particularly relevant now, when young people are surrounded by constant evidence of everyone else’s supposed success.
Willy’s tragedy is that he genuinely believes he is doing all of this for his family. He dreams of being rich enough to give his boys everything they could ever want. He imagines the life he might have had if he had made different choices.
He carries the weight of every perceived failure and eventually convinces himself that there must be one final thing he can do to make everything right. And perhaps that is what makes the play so devastating. Willy isn’t chasing money; he is chasing proof that his life mattered.
The final moments, particularly Linda’s speech, stayed with me. Why, Willy? Why did this man have to spend his entire life believing he wasn’t enough? And after everything, the idea that they are finally free is both incredibly moving and profoundly sad.
I walked into Death of a Salesman thinking I was going to see an old American classic that I probably should have encountered years ago. I walked out wondering how little we’ve actually changed.
We may not all be travelling from city to city selling goods, but many of us are still chasing the same promise: that if we work hard enough, earn enough, raise successful enough children and eventually get to the other side of the struggle, everything will somehow be alright.
Oh, to be rich and carefree. Maybe Willy Loman spent his entire life looking for something that was never there. And maybe that’s why, 75 years later, his story still hurts.
Death of a Salesman is presented by GWB Entertainment and Andrew Henry Presents. It runs to 6 September at The Lyric Theatre, QPAC as part of a national tour. See full dates below.
Tickets: https://www.qpac.com.au/whats-on/2026/death-of-a-salesman
Website: http://salesmanaustralia.com.au
Socials: https://www.instagram.com/salesmanaustralia/
Photo credits: Jeff Busby
2026 Australian Tour Dates:
Melbourne 11 – 22 August 2026, Her Majesty’s Theatre
Brisbane 28 August – 6 September, Lyric Theatre, QPAC
Adelaide 26 September – 4 October, Festival Theatre
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