    '''''Death of a Salesman''''' is a 1949 play written by American playwright Arthur Miller. It was the recipient of the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Tony Award for Best Play. Premiered at the Morosco Theatre in February 1949, the original production ran for a total of 742 performances.  Miller's play represents a democratization of the ancient form of tragedy; the play's protagonist is himself obsessed with the question of greatness, and his downfall arises directly from his continued misconception of himself—at age 63—as someone capable of greatness, as well as the unshakable conviction that greatness stems directly from personal charisma or popularity.  ==Plot == Willy Loman returns home after an unsuccessful business trip. Frustrated at his lack of success, his wife Linda suggests that he ask his boss Howard Wagner to allow him to work in his home city so he will not have to travel. Willy complains to Linda that their son, Biff, who comes home for the holidays, has yet to make good on his life. Despite Biff's promise as an athlete in high school, he flunked senior year math, made no effort in summer school, and never went to college.  Biff and his brother, Happy, who is also visiting, reminisce about their childhood together. They discuss their father's mental degeneration, which they have witnessed by his constant vacillations and talking to himself. When Willy walks in, angry that the two boys have never amounted to anything, Biff and Happy tell Willy that Biff plans to make a business proposition the next day in an effort to pacify their father.  The next day, Willy goes to ask his boss for a job in town while Biff goes to make a business proposition. Both fail, as Willy gets angry and ends up getting fired when the boss tells him to continue being a traveling salesman, while Biff makes a terrible impression during his business presentation and impulsively steals a fountain pen (an expensive symbol of status worth far more than a ball point pen). Willy then meets Bernard, who tells him that Biff originally wanted to do well in summer school, but something happened in Boston when Biff went to visit Willy there that changed his mind.  Happy, Biff, and Willy meet for dinner at a restaurant, but Willy refuses to hear bad news from Biff. The two sons decide to lie to their father, who then goes into a flashback of what happened in Boston the day Biff stopped trying to succeed in life. Willy had been in a hotel on a sales trip with a young woman when Biff showed up, causing him to want to flunk math and ruin his father's dreams of his success out of spite.  Biff and Happy leave their deranged father in the restaurant for a couple of young women, yet when they return home they find their mother knew they left Willy alone. She angrily shouts at them while Willy remains talking to himself outside. Eventually Willy joins the argument, at which point Biff forcefully says that he is no longer being a failure out of spite: he simply knows he isn't cut out to be a successful business man. The feud culminates with Biff hugging Willy, telling his father he loves him.  Rather than listen to what Biff actually says, Willy realizes his son has forgiven him and thinks Biff will now pursue a career as a businessman. Willy decides to kill himself in an auto accident so that Biff can get enough money to start his business, yet at the funeral Biff retains his belief that he does not want to become a businessman. Happy, on the other hand, chooses to take the insurance money and follow in his father's footsteps.  == Style ==  The play is mostly told from the point of view of the main protagonist, Willy, and it shows previous parts of Willy's life in his time shifts, sometimes during a present day scene.  It does this by having a scene begin in the present time, and adding characters onto the stage whom only Willy can see and hear, representing characters and conversations from other times and places. Many dramatic techniques are also used to represent these time shifts. For example, leaves often appear around the current setting (representing the leaves of the two elm trees which were situated next to the house, prior to the development of the apartment blocks). Biff and Happy are dressed in high school football sweaters and are accompanied with the &quot;''gay music of the boys''&quot;. The characters will also be allowed to pass through the walls that are only impassable in the present, as told in Miller's stage directions in the opening of ACT 1:  ''Whenever the action is in the present the actors observe the imaginary wall-lines, entering the house only through its door at the left. But in the scenes of the past these boundaries are broken and characters enter or leave a room by stepping 'through' a wall onto the forestage.''  However some of these time shifts/imaginings occur when there are present characters onstage; one example of this is during a conversation between Willy and his neighbor Charley. During the conversation, Willy's brother Ben comes on stage and begins talking to Willy while Charley speaks to Willy.  When Willy begins talking to his brother, the other characters do not understand to whom he is talking, and some of them even begin to suspect that he has &quot;lost it&quot;.  However, at times it breaks away from Willy's point of view and focuses on the other characters: Linda, Biff, and Happy.  During these parts of the play, the time and place stay constant without any abrupt flashbacks that usually happen while the play takes Willy's point of view. Willy dies self-deceived.  The play's structure resembles a stream of consciousness account: Willy drifts between his living room, downstage, to the apron and flashbacks of an idyllic past, and also to fantasized conversations with Ben. When we are in the present the characters abide by the rules of the set, entering only through the stage door to the left; however, when we visit Willy's &quot;past&quot; these rules are removed, with characters openly moving through walls. Whereas the term &quot;flashback&quot; as a form of cinematography for these scenes is often heard, Miller himself rather speaks of &quot;mobile concurrences&quot;. In fact, flashbacks would show an objective image of the past. Miller's mobile concurrences, however, rather show highly subjective memories. Furthermore, as Willy's mental state deteriorates, the boundaries between past and present are destroyed, and the two start to exist in parallel.  ==Productions== The original Broadway production was produced by Kermit Bloomgarden and opened at the Morosco Theatre on February 10, 1949, starring Lee J. Cobb as Willy Loman, Mildred Dunnock as Linda, Arthur Kennedy as Biff and Cameron Mitchell as Happy. Albert Dekker and Gene Lockhart later played Willy Loman during the original Broadway run. It won the Tony Award for Best Play, Best Supporting or Featured Actor (Arthur Kennedy), Best Scenic Design (Jo Mielziner), Producer (Dramatic), Author (Arthur Miller), and Director (Elia Kazan), as well as the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play. Jayne Mansfield performed in a production of the play in Dallas, Texas in October, 1953. Her performance in the play attracted Paramount Pictures to hire her for the studio's film productions.''Va Va Voom'' by Steve Sullivan. General Publishing Group, Los Angeles, California, Page 50  The play has been revived on Broadway three times since:  * June 26, 1975 at the Circle in the Square Theatre, running for 71 performances. George C. Scott starred as Willy. * March 29, 1984 at the Broadhurst Theatre, running for 97 performances. Dustin Hoffman played Willy. In a return engagement, this production re-opened on September 14, 1984 and ran for 88 performances. The production won the Tony Award for Best Revival and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Revival. * February 10, 1999 at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre, running for 274 performances, with Brian Dennehy as Willy. The production won the Tony Award for: Best Revival of a Play; Best Actor in Play; Best Featured Actress in a Play (Elizabeth Franz); Best Direction of a Play (Robert Falls). This production was filmed.  A revival starring Philip Seymour Hoffman is planned to open in fall of 2011.  It was also part of the inaugural season of the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  Christopher Lloyd portrayed Willy Loman in a 2010 production by the Weston Playhouse in Weston, Vermont, which toured several New England venues.  == Adaptations ==  In 1951, it was adapted by Stanley Roberts into a film which was directed by László Benedek who won the Golden Globe Award for Best Director.  The film was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Fredric March), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Kevin McCarthy), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Mildred Dunnock), Best Cinematography, Black-and-White and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture.  * 1961: ''En Handelsresandes död'' starring Kolbjörn Knudsen - directed by Hans Abramson (in Swedish) * 1968: ''Der Tod eines Handlungsreisenden'' starring Heinz Rühmann and directed by Gerhard Klingenberg  ; Television   * 1966: starring Lee J. Cobb, Gene Wilder, Mildred Dunnock, James Farentino, Karen Steele and George Segal.  It was directed by Alex Segal. * 1985: starring Dustin Hoffman, Kate Reid, John Malkovich, Stephen Lang and Charles Durning. It was directed by Volker Schlöndorff. * 1996: starring Warren Mitchell, Rosemary Harris, Iain Glen and Owen Teale. It was directed by David Thacker. * 2000: starring Brian Dennehy, Elizabeth Franz, Ron Eldard, Ted Koch, Howard Witt and Richard Thompson. It was directed by Kirk Browning.  ==Awards and nominations==  ;Awards * 1949 New York Drama Critics' Circle Best Play * 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Drama * 1949 Tony Award for Best Play * 1984 Drama Desk Award Outstanding Revival * 1984 Tony Award for Best Reproduction * 1999 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play * 1999 Drama Desk Award Outstanding Revival of a Play  