{"id":18682,"date":"2017-10-18T13:02:16","date_gmt":"2017-10-18T17:02:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=18682"},"modified":"2017-10-18T13:02:16","modified_gmt":"2017-10-18T17:02:16","slug":"tas-classic-death-of-a-salesman-has-timely-themes-director","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/tas-classic-death-of-a-salesman-has-timely-themes-director\/","title":{"rendered":"TA\u2019s classic \u201cDeath of a Salesman\u201d has timely themes: director"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t always on his radar, but for the past few months, Arthur Miller\u2019s classic play, Death of a Salesman, has become a way of life for Shawn Rocheleau.
\nEarlier this year, Mr. Rocheleau stepped up to the director\u2019s chair for Theatre Aurora\u2019s production, which kicks off its 59th season this Thursday, October 19, unfamiliar and mildly unenthusiastic about this dark slice of Americana.
\nThat, however, was just on the surface.
\nDelving deeper, he discovered themes set down in the late 1940s that now, in the second decade of the twenty-first century, are more relevant now than ever before.
\nFirst performed in 1949, Death of a Salesman centres on Willy Loman, a down-on-his-luck salesman in his early 60s, along with his family, who begins a rapid descent.
\nAn enduring classic, but one which has, since its inception, conjured up mixed emotions among theatre-goers.
\n\u201cWhen I tell someone I\u2019m directing Death of a Salesman, I have had a few people say, \u2018That\u2019s great, but I don\u2019t want to see it,\u2019 because it is not a fun play, it is a serious play; there are moments of levity and moments of lightness, but there are heavy issues,\u201d says Mr. Rocheleau.
\nThere was a time where he might have felt the same way, but after accepting the role as director, he took on his new subject with gusto, reading, re-reading, and reading the play some more, researching the life of Arthur Miller, immersing himself in the time period, and what he found surprised him.
\n\u201cThe reality is that even though the play is almost 70 years old, it is also incredibly current,\u201d he says. \u201cI find the more I read it, the more I see Willy Loman as that person who is just desperate to get that foothold but nothing is working out for him. There is a lot of currency in the play.\u201d
\nThis currency, he says, is particularly present in the current climate in the United States.
\n\u201cFrom where I am sitting, it seems to me that Americans have been sold a bogus, false bill of goods,\u201d says the director. \u201cThere is the idea of the American Dream that if you just work hard enough you will succeed and have a good life. Americans believe this to a point where they don\u2019t want help and they don\u2019t want social assistance and this play is all about the falsehoods of the American dream.
\n\u201cNothing Willy does he thinks is enough. I feel like Americans have been tricked into thinking that if they are poor it is their fault and this play works on that. Willy really believes that if you are liked enough and you work hard enough and you devote your life to a company that they are going to take care of you and none of that is really true. When I look at what is going on in the states today, a lot of the problems we see going on in the south have to do with the fact a lot of white, lower middle class people feel like they are doing everything right yet it is not working. But, instead of looking at how the system is stacked against them they start blaming other people. That doesn\u2019t come to bear in the play but I think that is where it is.\u201d
\nWhen Mr. Rochelau looks at Willy Loman in today\u2019s context, he says he could see him among those \u201ctrying to reclaim their space.\u201d As Canadians, he says it is important to examine these themes because it helps us understand what is going on.
\nThis is a conversation he has had with his actors, actors he says who are \u201cblessed\u201d with an incredible intelligence to bring the play to life. Each came into the project with completely open mind, and the director hopes this open mindedness will be shared by audiences starting this week.
\n\u201cIt is a good story that is told well and is well performed,\u201d he says. \u201cWe have attracted some incredible talent from, perhaps, outside our regular bank of talent, so it is a great show, it is well acted and even though it is not a happy play, I still think it is a great play.
\n\u201cPart of theatre\u2019s job is to make people think and hopefully give them cause for discussion after they have seen it.\u201d
\nTheatre Aurora\u2019s production of Death of a Salesman opens this Thursday, October 19 at 8 p.m. and runs on select days and times through Saturday, October 28. For further information, including tickets, visit www.theatreaurora.com or call 905-727-3669.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It wasn\u2019t always on his radar, but for the past few months, Arthur Miller\u2019s classic play, Death of a Salesman, has become a way of life for Shawn Rocheleau.
\nEarlier this year, Mr….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":18666,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26,4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/2017-10-19-05.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-4Rk","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-29 15:39:50","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}