Latest news with #WillyLoman
San Francisco Chronicle
22-04-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
John Mulaney is coming to the Bay Area. Here's how to get tickets
Comedian John Mulaney is bringing his fine-grain observations, piquant juxtapositions and a fondness for in-depth comedic stunts to the Bay Area. The two-time Emmy winner, who combines rakish good looks with a charming big-man-on-campus vibe, is scheduled to bring his stand-up show 'John Mulaney: Mister Whatever' to the Mountain Winery in Saratoga on Oct. 10 and the Masonic in San Francisco on Nov. 22. Other stops on his 31-city tour include several shows in Canada as well as across the U.S., from Las Vegas to Detroit and Tampa, Fla. Ticket pre-sales start at 10 a.m. Wednesday, April 23, with general sales opening at 10 a.m. Friday, at 'Mister Whatever' follows the comedian's appearance last September at BroadwaySF's Golden Gate Theatre in 'John Mulaney in Concert.' The Chicago native and 'Saturday Night Live' alum is the kind of comedian who organizes a whole segment honoring the character of Willy Loman from Arthur Miller's 'Death of a Salesman,' gathering actors who've played the part all the way from high schoolers to Christopher Lloyd. Or he might dedicate a Netflix stand-up special to the subject of height, lining up men of every stature from five feet to seven feet in a perfect diagonal line. In addition to stand-up and voiceover work, including for multiple 'Spider-Man' animated films and the Netflix series 'Big Mouth,' he's appeared on Broadway as part of the original cast of 'All In: Comedy About Love' by fellow 'SNL' alum Simon Rich and 'Oh, Hello on Broadway,' which he co-wrote. His Netflix talk show 'Everybody's Live with John Mulaney' premiered last month with multiple guests with Bay Area connections, including Woodside-based folk singer Joan Baez, Chronicle personal finance columnist Jessica Roy, part-time San Franciscan and filmmaker John Waters and New Century Chamber Orchestra Music Director Daniel Hope.
The Guardian
09-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Death of a Salesman review – Arthur Miller's timeless tale of a small man crushed by big dreams
He lies to gain status. His every deal is transactional. He exaggerates for effect. He is seduced by money, deluded about his importance and clearly going to leave his sons with a father complex. Yet Willy Loman is no president. The ordinary guy at the centre of Arthur Miller's 1949 classic might have fallen for a Trumpian myth about the self-made man – crushing competition, fighting for family, privileging the individual – but he is at the losing end of the equation. 'The only thing you've got in this world is what you can sell,' his old neighbour admonishes, knowing this exhausted salesman has sold his last. It is the exhaustion David Hayman plays best. In Andy Arnold's no-nonsense touring production for Raw Material and Trafalgar, with its live music and open staging, the actor starts out crumpled and broken. That someone has called him a 'little squirt' seems cruel, but you can see why. He is drained of colour in a sepia world, deflated and beat. The optimism that sustained him over long years of pushing product to the buyers of New England has become all empty promise. His old lines no longer resonate. He tries them out anyway. So desolate is he that it is hard to see the charismatic huckster he once was. Behind the hyperbole, we can suppose he used to have at least some charm and skill, but here it is too distant a memory. Was he ever well liked? All that remains is the damage, not only to himself but to the family who have bought into the illusion. In an especially powerful performance by Dan Cahill, his son Biff is waking up to the lie. Well matched in stocky physicality with Michael Wallace as brother Happy, he gives every impression of the sportsman gone to seed, a dropout searching for meaning when he can no longer measure success in trophies and sales targets. He carries a brute, inarticulate anger. Offsetting their angst, Beth Marshall gives a fine, subtle performance as mother Linda, showing her as the rock that holds the family together, balanced, forgiving and wiser than anyone in an economic system that is cruel and dehumanising. Touring until 3 May
