Imperfect Pitch

Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman is one of the handful of modern plays that comes close to great tragedy-American equivalents to Oedipus Rex, The Oresteia and Trojan Women. Modern audiences come to Salesman-along with O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night and The Iceman Cometh-fully versed in the tragic denouement that awaits at the last curtain. We witness these plays again and again not just for the sake of catharsis (if we're fortunate), but also to study how new artists call the Lomans, the Tyrones and Harry Hope's bar back to life for a night's journey into the American soul.

All of these plays, Greek and American, require a strong ensemble to inhabit their intimately tragic worlds. Artists Repertory Theatre's latest production of Salesman fails to achieve this, becoming instead a star vehicle for its artistic director, Allen Nause. Though Nause reaches moments of grandeur and heart-rending poignancy as Willy Loman, he's often playing against characters that have been reduced to ciphers, and so his performance overcompensates for the absences at times.

Though Jon Kretzu's production is stylish, it would work more effectively as a Nordstrom window display, especially with Lawrence Larsen's feuillemort- and sepia-dripping design, as if Salesman were a "memory play" rather than a tragedy.

Although competent, none of the actors, save Nause, achieves fully rounded characterization. Kretzu has come up with an interesting idea to have both Linda Loman, Willy's wife, and his on-the-road mistress played by the same actor. However, it doesn't quite work, partially because Linda Williams Janke plays the character of Linda as physically closed down and internalized, with Janke wandering through half her scenes with her arms folded against her chest as if she were suffering from stage fright.

But as the mistress, Janke blooms with a blowsy physicality and mischievous delivery that proves she's a capable performer. The folded arms, then, are a directorial choice that hopes to communicate-what? Apprehension? Timidity in the face of the mistress's brazenness? Ultimately, the more difficult work of character development is stymied by cheap gestural shorthand, something found throughout this production.

However, attention must be paid to Nause's Willy. There are problems in this performance as well, as Nause prematurely plays Act II's descent in Act I, and he occasionally resorts to rough bluster where something quieter is required. But Nause has never immersed himself so fully in a role, so much so that at times he seems physically altered by the experience. But he delivers a singular star turn in a story that demands to be universal.

Artists Repertory Theatre,1516 SW Alder St., 241-1278. 7 pm Tuesdays-Thursdays, 8 pm Fridays-Saturdays, 2 and 7 pm Sundays. Closes Feb. 27. $15-$35.

WWeek 2015