Stage Directions in Death of a Salesman

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• Stage Directions in Death of a Salesman

The Nature of Stage Directions

Arthur Miller uses staging and special effects in Death of a Salesman to create atmosphere and tone, and to express ideas nonverbally to his audience. Through effects of lighting and sound, Miller creates characterization, irony, images, metaphors, tone, and transitions. Special effects are a gray area in terms of literary analysis, as the stage directions in a script are open to a certain degree of reinterpretation by directors. Individual productions of Death of a Salesman may or may not incorporate individual elements of Miller's stage directions. For example, Dustin Hoffman's movie version of the play excludes the opening scene's orange and blue-lighted landscape. The optional nature of the special effects in Death of a Salesman means that each stage direction may lead to several different effects in productions. The leaves mentioned in the stage directions could take the form of physical leaves strewn across the stage, or they could be represented through lighting effects, creating an entirely different impression.
It is the director's job both to provide his or her own interpretation of a script, and to convey the playwright's original concepts. Arthur Miller's stage directions are intriguingly conducive to the latter. On the second page, for example, in his description of Linda, Miller says "... she more than loves him, she admires him, as through his mercurial nature, his temper, his massive dreams and littler cruelties, served her only as sharp reminders of the turbulent longings within him, longings which she shares but lacks the temperament to utter and follow to their end." This passage transcends the usual purpose of stage directions. It is strongly effective as characterization, and indeed has literary merit in and of itself.
Many of Miller's stage directions are concise, clearly interpreted, and easily translated into physical effects. However, some of them are more metaphorical and open to interpretation, allowing considerable directorial leeway. "...the house, which holds the air of night and a dream." is powerfully suggestive, but not specifically descriptive of how the author wishes to create this effect. These vague lines in Miller's stage directions may be intended primarily to convey they author's meaning and themes to the director and actors who would be reading the script in its complete state. However, they may alternately be intended to bring out the director's interpretation of "the air of night and a dream", making the play uniquely personal every time it is performed.

Sound

From the beginning of the play, music is used to set atmosphere and tone. While it may be thought of as pastoral, one can also see that the haunting flute which both opens and closes the production might be imagined as sounding forlorn and gently tragic, in the beginning setting the stage for the Loman family's tragedy, and in the end mourning for Willy Loman. Sound is a central part of the scenes set in the Lomans' past; here it suggests happier times by its cheerfulness, and Ben's theme music reinforces both his position as Willy's idol and the aura of success that surrounds him.
Sound is also used to enhance the audience's understanding of the characters. For example, in the Dustin Hoffman version, sound is used in the restaurant scene to create an impression of what Willy is thinking. The audience hears scrambled pieces of sound, often voices calling Willy's name. The effect is unsettling and creates pathos.
A similar effect is achieved through tone of voice in Lee J. Cobb's version of the play. Cobb creates the atmosphere of the memories with an enthusiastic tone of voice, and later in the play illustrates Willy's position through a desperate tone. While such elements as tone of voice and acting techniques are not technically "special effects", they are nevertheless used to create an effect on the audience and thus are related.
Sound in Death of a Salesman is used to promote understanding of the characters and events in the play, to set atmosphere and tone of scenes (particularly of memories), to characterize -- especially in the case of Ben -- and to create pathos.

Lighting

Lighting in Death of a Salesman often illustrates atmosphere and mood. In most of Willy's memories, leaves (presumably lighting) cover the stage, creating a pastoral and seemingly happy atmosphere. In stark contrast, the scenes in the restaurant and the hotel room are characterized by a red glow. (If one wished to pun, one might suggest this is reminiscent of the "red light district"), red symbolizes passion and anger. Throughout the play, lighting is used in this way, defining the atmosphere in which the characters exist, in the absence of settings and props to do so.
Lighting is also used to indicate the location on the stage in which relevant action is occurring. When Willy moves into his memories, a different type of light or location of light indicates the difference between his locations on the space-time continuum as different from that of those around him. For example, light is used to express Willy's memories about the woman while Linda remains sitting in the kitchen of the house. We are not confused about Linda's involvement or lack thereof in the scene, because light indicates that the action occurs where she is not.
Characterization is also brought about to a certain extent through lighting, though in a subtle manner that serves more to accentuate certain character traits that are expressed elsewhere. In the film version, the character Happy is nearly always half-lit, implying that his life revolves about the half of his life that is splendor of his past success, instead of the stagnation and discontent that is his present.

Sound and Light Used Together

Miller often uses sound and light to indicate transitions between Willy's mind and reality, as in the case of the woman's laugh becoming Linda's, the truth becoming lies, as Willy travels from daydream to reality. Other transitions, between times and places, are indicated similarly. Atmospheric music, presence and absence of light, and incidental sounds create movement between past and present. For example, as Willy is lost in remembering Biff's visit to Boston, persistent knocking pulls him entirely into the memory and away from the current physical scene, the restaurant. Slightly later "the light follows him" from the hotel room to the hallway, making clear to the audience his movement from one surrounding to another without change of set elements.

• Careful considerations of the directions for staging and set design given by Arthur Miller are integral to full understanding of Death of a Salesman and its implications. Much of the layout of the set itself, namely the house and forestage, are carefully described in the stage directions given at the commencement of the play, before the entrance of any characters. These opening remarks set forth the boundaries of what is to become the scene of the tragedy that is to follow, and as such must be regarded as almost equally important to the play as is the dialogue itself.
The play begins thus:
A melody is heard, played upon a flute. It is small and fine, telling of grass and trees and the horizon. The curtain rises.
Before the curtain rises, an audience ignorant of its plot and setting is free to be manipulated by the gentle sweetness of the flute music. It conjures up mental images of the peaceful stillness of a pastoral scene; we as the unknowing audience can hardly be expected to imagine that the scene that is to follow is not in any way similar to the image formed in our minds by the opening music.
Before us is the Salesman's house. We are aware of towering, angular shapes behind it, surrounding it on all sides. Only the blue light of the sky falls upon the house and forestage; the surrounding area shows an angry glow of orange.
The moment that the curtain rises and reveals the set, the dream-like mood created by the opening music is destroyed by the harsh reality of the decidedly urban setting. Instead of gently rolling hills and the serenity of a countryside, the audience is confronted with a sharp and angular cityscape that dwarfs the house in which most of the play is to take place. The house itself is lit by blue light from the sky, setting it apart and classing it as distinct from the background, which glows the angry orange of an urban sunrise.
This incongruity serves to initiate a feeling of weary irony that pervades the entire play; the idea that little is as it seems, and nothing lives up to expectations.
As more light appears, we see a solid vault of apartment houses around the small, fragile-seeming home. An air of the dream clings to the place, a dream rising out of reality. The kitchen at center seems actual enough, for there is a kitchen table with three chairs, and a refrigerator. But no other fixtures are seen.
The contrast between the fragility of the Salesman's house and the solidity of the apartment houses surrounding it provide more visual irony as well as hinting that the American dream as depicted by a house in the city is far less substantial than it might seem to be at first glance.
In the film version of Death of a Salesman starring Dustin Hoffman, this insubstantiality is brought to the forefront through the set itself. The house in which the action takes place has no roof, and the corners of the rooms do not meet; the walls approach each other but do not touch. This serves to render the house unsettlingly hollow and flimsy, more disturbingly so because it is not until some time into the film that one watching it sees the true physical nature of the house -- until that point of revelation the audience blithely assumes that this house is as any other house, sturdy and stable and complete.
This visual irony is a central point of the staging and set design for Death of a Salesman -- the fact that the house, while appearing from a certain perspective to be solid and whole, in fact is merely a shell. It is a sad and bloated parody of what a "home" is intended to be, a safe haven and shelter from the harsh realities crashing in from all sides and a place to mature and raise a family in peace, apart from the strain of the outside world.
As it appears in the stage directions, Willy Loman's house has no real walls to separate it from its surroundings and the forestage. This contributes to the impression that his mental state and foothold in the reality of the present are tenuous at best; that his ability to remain focused on that which is happening in the present is as uncertain as the indefinite boundaries of his home.
The fact that the entire play takes place in the house and on the forestage before it also adds to the impression of Willy's deepening madness. The set serves to be several different places in several different time periods as the play progresses; in combination with the various lighting and sound effects, in particular where two different time periods overlap in Willy's mind, the setting can become rather confused in the minds of the audience which allows for them to sympathize with his tragic plight and descent into insanity.
Staging and special effects are put to use in Death of a Salesman to many ends, not the least of which are the creation of atmosphere and tone, and the expression of ideas in a nonverbal fashion. The stage itself serves as a visual metaphor, which is representative of the insubstantial nature of Willy's dreams of success for himself and his sons, and indeed of the great and grand concept of the American Dream itself. The empty structure of the house and its skeletal nature create a weary visual irony that serves to neatly summarize a major underlying tonal quality of the play while at the same time providing perfectly appropriate physical surroundings in which the action can take place.

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