Death of a Salesman Read online

  BIFF: It’s goddam time you heard that! I had to be boss big shot in two weeks, and I’m through with it!

  WILLY: Then hang yourself! For spite, hang yourself!

  BIFF: No! Nobody’s hanging himself, Willy! I ran down eleven flights with a pen in my hand today. And suddenly I stopped, you hear me? And in the middle of that office building, do you hear this? I stopped in the middle of that building and I saw—the sky. I saw the things that I love in this world. The work and the food and time to sit and smoke. And I looked at the pen and said to myself, what the hell am I grabbing this for? Why am I trying to become what I don’t want to be? What am I doing in an office, making a contemptuous, begging fool of myself, when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am! Why can’t I say that, Willy? [He tries to make WILLY face him, but WILLY pulls away and moves to the left.]

  WILLY [with hatred, threateningly]: The door of your life is wide open!

  BIFF: Pop! I’m a dime a dozen, and so are you!

  WILLY [turning on him now in an uncontrolled outburst]: I am not a dime a dozen! I am Willy Loman, and you are Biff Loman!

  [BIFF starts for WILLY, but is blocked by HAPPY. In his fury, BIFF seems on the verge of attacking his father.]

  BIFF: I am not a leader of men, Willy, and neither are you. You were never anything but a hard-working drummer who landed in the ash can like all the rest of them! I’m one dollar an hour, Willy! I tried seven states and couldn’t raise it. A buck an hour! Do you gather my meaning? I’m not bringing home any prizes any more, and you’re going to stop waiting for me to bring them home!

  WILLY [directly to BIFF]: You vengeful, spiteful mut!

  [BIFF breaks from HAPPY. WILLY, in fright, starts up the stairs. BIFF grabs him.]

  BIFF [at the peak of his fury]: Pop, I’m nothing! I’m nothing, Pop. Can’t you understand that? There’s no spite in it any more. I’m just what I am, that’s all.

  [BIFF’S fury has spent itself, and he breaks down, sobbing, holding on to WILLY, who dumbly fumbles for BIFF’S face.]

  WILLY [astonished]: What’re you doing? What’re you doing? [To LINDA] Why is he crying?

  BIFF [crying, broken]: Will you let me go, for Christ’s sake? Will you take that phony dream and burn it before something happens? [Struggling to contain himself, he pulls away and moves to the stairs.] I’ll go in the morning. Put him—put him to bed. [Exhausted, BIFF moves up the stairs to his room.]

  WILLY [after a long pause, astonished, elevated]: Isn’t that—isn’t that remarkable? Biff—he likes me!

  LINDA: He loves you, Willy!

  HAPPY [deeply moved]: Always did, Pop.

  WILLY: Oh, Biff! [Staring wildly] He cried! Cried to me. [He is choking with his love, and now cries out his promise.] That boy—that boy is going to be magnificent!

  [BEN appears in the light just outside the kitchen.]

  BEN: Yes, outstanding, with twenty thousand behind him.

  LINDA [sensing the racing of his mind, fearfully, carefully]: Now come to bed, Willy. It’s all settled now.

  WILLY [ finding it difficult not to rush out of the house]: Yes, we’ll sleep. Come on. Go to sleep, Hap.

  BEN: And it does take a great kind of a man to crack the jungle.

  [In accents of dread, BEN’S idyllic music starts up.]

  HAPPY [his arm around LINDA]: I’m getting married, Pop, don’t forget it. I’m changing everything. I’m gonna run that department before the year is up. You’ll see, Mom. [He kisses her.]

  BEN: The jungle is dark but full of diamonds, Willy.

  [WILLY turns, moves, listening to BEN.]

  LINDA: Be good. You’re both good boys, just act that way, that’s all.

  HAPPY: ’Night, Pop. [He goes upstairs.]

  LINDA [to WILLY]: Come, dear.

  BEN [with greater force]: One must go in to fetch a diamond out.

  WILLY [to LINDA, as he moves slowly along the edge of the kitchen, toward the door]: I just want to get settled down, Linda. Let me sit alone for a little.

  LINDA [almost uttering her fear]: I want you upstairs.

  WILLY [taking her in his arms]: In a few minutes, Linda. I couldn’t sleep right now. Go on, you look awful tired. [He kisses her.]

  BEN: Not like an appointment at all. A diamond is rough and hard to the touch.

  WILLY: Go on now. I’ll be right up.

  LINDA: I think this is the only way, Willy.

  WILLY: Sure, it’s the best thing.

  BEN: Best thing!

  WILLY: The only way. Everything is gonna be—go on, kid, get to bed. You look so tired.

  LINDA: Come right up.

  WILLY: Two minutes.

  [LINDA goes into the living-room, then reappears in her bedroom. WILLY moves just outside the kitchen door.]

  WILLY: Loves me. [Wonderingly] Always loved me. Isn’t that a remarkable thing? Ben, he’ll worship me for it!

  BEN [with promise]: It’s dark there, but full of diamonds.

  WILLY: Can you imagine that magnificence with twenty thousand dollars in his pocket?

  LINDA [calling from her room]: Willy! Come up!

  WILLY [calling into the kitchen]: Yes! Yes. Coming! It’s very smart, you realize that, don’t you, sweetheart? Even Ben sees it. I gotta go, baby. ’Bye! ’Bye! [Going over to BEN, almost dancing] Imagine? When the mail comes he’ll be ahead of Bernard again!

  BEN: A perfect proposition all around.

  WILLY: Did you see how he cried to me? Oh, if I could kiss him, Ben!

  BEN: Time, William, time!

  WILLY: Oh, Ben, I always knew one way or another we were gonna make it, Biff and I!

  BEN [looking at his watch]: The boat. We’ll be late. [He moves slowly off into the darkness.]

  WILLY [elegiacally, turning to the house]: Now when you kick off, boy, I want a seventy-yard boot, and get right down the field under the ball, and when you hit, hit low and hit hard, because it’s important, boy. [He swings around and faces the audience.] There’s all kinds of important people in the stands, and the first thing you know . . . [Suddenly realizing he is alone] Ben! Ben, where do I . . . ? [He makes a sudden movement of search.] Ben, how do I . . . ?

  LINDA [calling]: Willy, you coming up?

  WILLY [uttering a gasp of fear, whirling about as if to quiet her]: Sh! [He turns around as if to find his way; sounds, faces, voices seem to be swarming in upon him and he flicks at them, crying, “Sh! Sh!” Suddenly music, faint and high, stops him. It rises in intensity, almost to an unbearable scream. He goes up and down on his toes, and rushes off around the house.] Shhh!

  LINDA: Willy?

  [There is no answer. LINDA waits. BIFF gets up off his bed. He is still in his clothes. HAPPY sits up. BIFF stands listening. ]

  LINDA [with real fear]: Willy, answer me! Willy!

  [There is the sound of a car starting and moving away at full speed.]

  LINDA: No!

  BIFF [rushing down the stairs]: Pop!

  [As the car speeds off, the music crashes down in a frenzy of sound, which becomes the soft pulsation of a single cello string. BIFF slowly returns to his bedroom. He and HAPPY gravely don their jackets. LINDA slowly walks out of her room. The music has developed into a dead march. The leaves of day are appearing over everything. CHARLEY and BERNARD, somberly dressed, appear and knock on the kitchen door. BIFF and HAPPY slowly descend the stairs to the kitchen as CHARLEY and BERNARD enter. All stop a moment when LINDA, in clothes of mourning, bearing a little bunch of roses, comes through the draped doorway into the kitchen. She goes to CHARLEY and takes his arm. Now all move toward the audience, through the wall-line of the kitchen. At the limit of the apron, LINDA lays down the flowers, kneels, and sits back on her heels. All stare down at the grave.]

  REQUIEM

  CHARLEY: It’s getting dark, Linda.

  [LINDA doesn’t react. She stares at the grave.]

  BIFF: How about it, Mom? Better get some rest, heh? They’ll be closing the gate soon.

/>   [LINDA makes no move. Pause.]

  HAPPY [deeply angered]: He had no right to do that. There was no necessity for it. We would’ve helped him.

  CHARLEY [ grunting]: Hmmm.

  BIFF: Come along, Mom.

  LINDA: Why didn’t anybody come?

  CHARLEY: It was a very nice funeral.

  LINDA: But where are all the people he knew? Maybe they blame him.

  CHARLEY: Naa. It’s a rough world, Linda. They wouldn’t blame him.

  LINDA: I can’t understand it. At this time especially. First time in thirty-five years we were just about free and clear. He only needed a little salary. He was even finished with the dentist.

  CHARLEY: No man only needs a little salary.

  LINDA: I can’t understand it.

  BIFF: There were a lot of nice days. When he’d come home from a trip; or on Sundays, making the stoop; finishing the cellar; putting on the new porch; when he built the extra bathroom; and put up the garage. You know something, Charley, there’s more of him in that front stoop than in all the sales he ever made.

  CHARLEY: Yeah. He was a happy man with a batch of cement.

  LINDA: He was so wonderful with his hands.

  BIFF: He had the wrong dreams. All, all, wrong.

  HAPPY [almost ready to fight BIFF]: Don’t say that!

  BIFF: He never knew who he was.

  CHARLEY [stopping HAPPY’S movement and reply. To BIFF]: Nobody dast blame this man. You don’t understand: Willy was a salesman. And for a salesman, there is no rock bottom to the life. He don’t put a bolt to a nut, he don’t tell you the law or give you medicine. He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back—that’s an earthquake. And then you get yourself a couple of spots on your hat, and you’re finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory.

  BIFF: Charley, the man didn’t know who he was.

  HAPPY [infuriated]: Don’t say that!

  BIFF: Why don’t you come with me, Happy?

  HAPPY: I’m not licked that easily. I’m staying right in this city, and I’m gonna beat this racket! [He looks at BIFF, his chin set.] The Loman Brothers!

  BIFF: I know who I am, kid.

  HAPPY: All right, boy. I’m gonna show you and everybody else that Willy Loman did not die in vain. He had a good dream. It’s the only dream you can have—to come out number-one man. He fought it out here, and this is where I’m gonna win it for him.

  BIFF [with a hopeless glance at HAPPY, bends toward his mother]: Let’s go, Mom.

  LINDA: I’ll be with you in a minute. Go on, Charley. [He hesitates.] I want to, just for a minute. I never had a chance to say good-bye.

  [CHARLEY moves away, followed by HAPPY. BIFF remains a slight distance up and left of LINDA. She sits there, summoning herself. The flute begins, not far away, playing behind her speech.]

  LINDA: Forgive me, dear. I can’t cry. I don’t know what it is, but I can’t cry. I don’t understand it. Why did you ever do that? Help me, Willy, I can’t cry. It seems to me that you’re just on another trip. I keep expecting you. Willy, dear, I can’t cry. Why did you do it? I search and search and I search, and I can’t understand it, Willy. I made the last payment on the house today. Today, dear. And there’ll be nobody home. [A sob rises in her throat.] We’re free and clear. [Sobbing more fully, released] We’re free. [BIFF comes slowly toward her.] We’re free . . . We’re free . . .

  [BIFF lifts her to her feet and moves out up right with her in his arms. LINDA sobs quietly. BERNARD and CHARLEY come together and follow them, followed by HAPPY. Only the music of the flute is left on the darkening stage as over the house the hard towers of the apartment buildings rise into sharp focus.]

  CURTAIN

  DEATH OF A SALESMAN

  A PLAY BY ARTHUR MILLER

  STAGED BY ELIA KAZAN

  CAST (in order of appearance)

  WILLY LOMAN

  LINDA

  BIFF

  HAPPY

  BERNARD

  THE WOMAN

  CHARLEY

  UNCLE BEN

  HOWARD WAGNER

  JENNY

  STANLEY

  MISS FORSYTHE

  LETTA

  Lee J. Cobb

  Mildred Dunnock

  Arthur Kennedy

  Cameron Mitchell

  Don Keefer

  Winnifred Cushing

  Howard Smith

  Thomas Chalmers

  Alan Hewitt

  Ann Driscoll

  Tom Pedi

  Constance Ford

  Hope Cameron

  The setting and lighting were designed by JO MIELZINER.

  The incidental music was composed by ALEX NORTH.

  The costumes were designed by JULIA SZE.

  Presented by KERMIT BLOOMGARDEN and WALTER FRIED at the Morosco Theatre in New York on February 10, 1949.