Exclusive Interview: Pop Culturalist Chats with the Cast of Death of a Salesman

Arthur Miller’s timeless classic, Death of a Salesman, is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year. With it widely considered one of the greatest plays of the 20th century, the Secret Rose Theatre in North Hollywood is commemorating the milestone and the legendary playwright with a four-week run of the show, now through the end of April. Pop Culturalist spoke with lead actors, Kevin McCorkle (Willy Loman), Jules Bruff (Linda Loman), Freddy Giorlando (Biff Loman), and Bradford James Jackson (Happy Loman) about the iconic play.

PC: It’s the 70th anniversary of Death of a Salesman. What does it mean to you to be part of this milestone/production?
Kevin: Cracking open my script to dive into the nearly ten thousand words that Willy Loman uses to tell his part of the Death of a Salesman story, I reflect on the magnitude of the impact of this old told tale over the past seventy years. Seventy years—a lifetime in itself. Did Arthur Miller imagine this story would have relevance and meaning in 2019? I somehow think he did. The themes in this play are universal and timeless: relationships, desire, the quest for acceptance, how our evolving lives may support or destroy us; family as it is now, as we hope it could be, as we remember it, truth and however each have our interpretation of reality.

Many changes have occurred since Death of a Salesman began in 1949. In fact, the only thing that is constant is change. The technology of the time simultaneously made life better and worse, much like the exponential technology shift that has taken place over the last twenty-five years. This play has been performed tens of thousands of times in theatres large and small: high school auditoriums, several Broadway runs, and every imaginable venue in between. There are people that have seen this play dozens of times and the dozen or more audience members I spoke with this weekend were having their first Death of a Salesman experience. That is the wonder, the wonder of this play. It contains the magic of story-telling and the universal connection that we experience in our own lives on the daily, even the moment to moment time frame.

I hope you have a chance to revisit this story or experience if for the first time at The Secret Rose Theatre this April. We have poured our hearts and souls into this iconic show and hope to see you there. At the end of April, our version of this classic will be history and the mantle of the tale will go on with future Lomans, Bens, Howards, Charleys, Bernards, and the others into coming decades and social evolutions. The characters may change, but the story remains the same.

PC: There have been many interpretations of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. How did you prepare? How challenging was it to make your character your own?
Freddy: Well, we prepared as a group doing table work for a month before getting into the theatre and getting the play up on its feet for the couple weeks we had before opening. The easiest thing for me and the Loman family, I’d say, was developing that loving family connection with each other because we are all friends and love each other in real life. Even when Bradford came on board to play Happy, it was an easy connection. He is such a sweetheart and great talent, that we felt like brothers from the jump. We even had sleepovers to run lines and deepen our connection with each other and our characters.

I individually prepared by digging deep into myself and seeing how I personally related to Biff Loman. I asked myself the right questions that would close the gap of disbelief between me and my character so I could allow myself to tell Biff’s story fully. Biff has also been a farmhand out West for years and he loves being outdoors and working on the ranch. I went to a ranch out here in L.A. and got familiar with farm life and what it meant to herd cattle; I was able to connect with the animals there, and even got on a horse for the first time in my life and took riding lessons. It was a beautiful experience. I used a lot of very personal experiences that resembled Biff’s in the story, so one of the challenges for me at first was to really allow myself to revisit all those past hurtful experiences again and again while preparing. Storytelling is what I love to do, so I was able to get out of my own way pretty early on in the process to allow myself to dive in deep waters and immerse myself into Biff. I care about Biff so much and I want to honor Arthur Miller and his classic story by telling an honest and truthful interpretation. It has been a beautiful process and I’m forever grateful for this experience.

Jules: Linda Loman, Willy’s wife, is a very complex character. She is what was considered to be a “good wife” during the 1930’s and 1940’s in America. Simultaneously, she is human and has her own hopes, dreams, and desires. Linda spent her entire life taking care of her husband and sons. As the family she dedicated her life to slowly unravels, she has to reconcile the life she dreamt of and hoped for with the life she has. It has been a challenge to make Linda strong, yet vulnerable. The age-old human question is “how can I keep going amidst tragedy and failure?”…The age old answer is “keep going.” It is my goal to give Linda Loman depth beyond just being a “good wife and mother”.

PC: The play covers several important themes. Which one resonates with you the most and why
Jules: The theme that speaks to me most is honesty and communication. I feel like the family in the play, like so many real families, would have had a much better chance of thriving if open communication and honesty had been a family value. Instead, the Lomans individually did whatever they could to give the impression that they had the perfect life. The onslaught of the prevalence in social media perpetuates this need to appear perfect. The Lomans would have had the most impressive IG accounts ever. [laughs]

Bradford: I would say the success. Success can come in many forms, but I think what men usually mistake or perceive to be successful is the illusion of it. Many men, including myself, at one point were susceptible to the outward appearance of it being money, cars, women, attention, etc., and it is something that’s even more prevalent today with the invention of social media. The pursuit of success can sometimes blind us from the ones that truly love and support us the most.

What truly brings success, in my opinion, is fulfilling your own desire of happiness by doing what truly brings you peace. When you ask yourself the question, “What do I love to do?” and do that, you’ll find success.

Catch Death of a Salesman playing at The Secret Rose Theatre in North Hollywood now through April.