Tod eines Handlungsreisenden [Death of a Salesman]

Willy Loman roars on stage in a Thunderbird. The sports car makes him happy, whether or not he’s in debt. In his stage classic Arthur Miller weighs up the costs of the American dream – and not just the monetary ones. And this dream will cost Willy Loman his life. In contrast with many productions from recent years Stefan Pucher makes no obvious reference to the present day: Stéphane Laimé’s fantastic stage design opens up dream homes of the 1950s in cinemascope. Cameras transfer the action onto screens, close-ups bring it nearer to the audience but at the same time also make it more distant. A magnificent company from Zurich play this story of a loser from the 1950s with an historical awareness – and show that the failures in the ‘American way of life’ have a great deal to do with us. Because the promise of this lifestyle – that everyone can achieve it, indeed that everyone must achieve it – still exists today as a threat.

Ellinor Landmann