Designed by Michael Pavelka, the set of the Gate Theatre’s production of Death of Salesman angles backwards giving the impression that the characters are trapped inside a giant ‘V’, the jaws of which could bite down at any moment. Upstage, a suggested strip of brownstones hovers overhead. The glassless façades are chased through by the mischievous branches of a large tree shooting from the left, as obstinate in its twilight as Willy Loman (Yulin) himself. Ostensibly growing through the Loman family’s Brooklyn home, the tree is a constant reminder of the precarious nature of material life. Other permanent fixtures include a bed and a fridge, which draw attention to the most basic of human processes of sleeping and eating, otherwise ignored by the dream-chasing salesman. A short rising staircase to the left is the family’s main point of entry and escape, and light is swallowed up in the narrowing perspective. In his affecting design, Pavelka manages to evoke a severely restricted, airless space, which is only compounded by the auditorium’s rising temperature.

First performed in 1949, the action of Miller’s play is told from sixty-three year-old Willy Loman’s perspective, and it fluctuates between the past and the present, the real and the imaginary, in keeping with the protagonist’s drifting mind. Like the nature of memory, there are no clear divisions in geography or time in this production. Scenes from other rooms and periods bleed into and out of each other. A stark light or costume change is generally used to indicate such a shift, or a subtle musical sequence from Clohessy’s score. In the case of his diamond tycoon brother Ben (Brennan), about whom Willy hallucinates, a shimmering white suit underscores the brash mythology of corporate success. There are times, however, when the action moves too loosely, especially in the first half, and it takes a while to establish what’s going on and where.

Yulin gives a wonderful performance as Loman. His embodiment is avuncular and harsh, frail yet determined. Throughout his life, Willy has championed being “well-liked” above all else to his sons, and even though this is exposed as a dangerous, even debilitating value system in the play, there remains something affable in Yulin’s take. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the actor is almost a decade older than Loman, and while some might say he is too old to play the role, the casting gives the impression that the play is as much about ageing, or the difficulty in “casting off” life as his wife Linda (Donnelly) suggests, as it is about a man’s failed career.

For most of the action, Loman is surrounded by his immediate family that includes his wife Linda and adult sons, Biff (Lombard) and Happy (Nolan). The latter is written to most resemble his father, and Rory Nolan’s brilliant performance manages to draw mirroring pretensions into focus. In the first half of the production, he is as confident and charismatic as presumably his father once was, and everything he says is gestured with hands and shoulders for added significance.

Under Esbjornson’s direction, the production lacks a certain confidence in the first half, which is eventually resolved. The momentum of Willy’s decline helps tighten the action, and members of his immediate family all manage to seize a moment of passion that draws us closer. This is especially true for Biff who finally confronts his father about his delusions: they are both ordinary men, he tearfully asserts, not great men. Lombard convinces us of his character’s emotion in this pivotal scene, but his wandering accent is an ongoing distraction. Indeed, out of the core cast, the only American accents we don’t notice are those of Yulin and Nolan.

Donnelly is warm and homely to begin with as Loman’s wife. When her soft approach fails to reconcile the men of the house, she eventually explodes with rage, ordering Biff to leave. The actor’s fury is a fitting response to the household’s frustrated energies, even if it compounds her character’s foolish support of her husband.

That the Gate’s production speaks with currency to capitalism’s underbelly is fairly obvious. It’s worth remembering, however, that Loman was never very successful in his personal or professional life to begin with, and because of this he has no high pedestal from which to fall. His greatest crime is a profound lack of self-awareness that he never manages to publicly rectify before taking his life. The friends and colleagues that populated the man’s self-aggrandizing tales are no-where to be seen at his funeral. Loman’s legacy is a son who rejects him, another who is destined to repeat his mistakes, and a wife who is unable to shed a tear.

You couldn’t say that the Gate’s production breathes new life into Miller’s text, but in Yulin’s performance in particular, it delivers some timely and affecting reminders of the perils of delusion and ambition.

Fintan Walsh is a post-doctoral researcher at the School of Drama, Trinity College Dublin. He is ITM’s staff writer.