Two Chinook Men Will Take the Stage in Death of a Salesman

On Thursday, January 17, when the curtain rises at 8:00 p.m. on the Montana Actors Theater (MAT) production of Arthur Miller's American classic Death of a Salesman, Chinook residents Ben Hall and Greg Jergeson will have spent countless hours memorizing lines, agonizing about costuming, and rehearsing their roles.

In the drama, Hall will play the lead character's friend and neighbor, Charley. As he reflects with Willy Loman, the audience will learn lessons about age discrimination, downsizing in corporate America, the effects of a materialistic and technological culture, and the frantic pace of contemporary life and its lack of leisure for workaholics. Spoiler alert! In the end, Willy is ruined by rejection, criticism, failure, self-doubt, and self-delusions.

About his role in Salesman, Hall said, "I am out of my comfort zone because I generally do musicals. The hardest part [of acting] is learning the lines and making them sound natural."

As Willy not only confronts his paranoia and depression but attempts to compete in an unscrupulous business world as a salesman when he should have been a carpenter, he discusses both his personal and his professional choices not only with Charley but with his older brother Ben, holding conversations with a man who is no longer alive. Ben appears in Willy's "daydreams."

During these episodes with his psychosomatic illness, Ben-who is played by Jergeson-gives voice to Willy's conscience. In a personification of wealth, power, success, and ruthlessness, Ben also represents opportunity versus security. Willy regards Ben as a symbol of the success that he so desperately craves for himself and his sons, Biff and Happy.

When asked to share his greatest challenge and the most satisfying aspect of playing the character Ben, Jergeson replied: "Although I may answer this question differently nearer our actual production date, the biggest challenge is conversing with Willy (and Linda and the boys) as a figment of Willy's imagination. Willy has put me on a pedestal as an idealized success, and yet he has this imaginary person not treat him very well. Then there is the time travel aspect where part of our imaginary conversation occurs in real time and then immediately shifts to an earlier period in the same scene.

"For the most satisfying aspect, and this may change too before production date, I would say that as I have made progress learning my lines, I am able to dispel my fears of early onset Alzheimer's."

Directed by MAT Artistic Director Jay Pyette, Miller's play tells the story of Willy Loman and his perception of the American Dream. "I believe the play is all about the loss of the American dream. Both the one that is perceived by Willy and the one that is perceived by society. Based on false perceptions, Willy wants something that he is never going to achieve," Pyette said.

The playwright's ability to project the story of this tragic, lower middle-class hero into the common experience of so many Americans who sustain themselves with illusions, who ignore realities, fear risk, and lack discipline, who suffer from low self-confidence, envy, and poor self-esteem, and who are unable to learn from role models makes this play one of the most significant in American theater in recent years. This haunting but richly relevant script was the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and a Tony Award, as well as many other distinctions.

Tickets are available at Five Heads, The Computer Center, and Bear Paw Meats or online at mtactors.com. With a valid ID, MSU-Northern students are admitted free.

Show dates are scheduled for January 17-19, and January 31-February 2.