Like Hamlet or Macbeth, Willy Loman is one of those great theatrical characters that is quite daunting to perform. The character has a huge amount of lines, and Willy, the tragic center of Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman,” is a complex, nuanced figure, at once a tour de force for an actor and a personification of the downside of chasing the American Dream.
Perhaps that’s why “Salesman,” though long-regarded as one of the greatest American plays of all time, is so infrequently performed. In the past 40 years, it’s only been staged twice in eastern Maine; in 1976 at the University of Maine and in 1997 by the Belfast Maskers.
Ten Bucks Theatre Company and Orono Community Theatre, in a first-ever joint production, will bring the Loman family to life this weekend and next, with performances set for 7 p.m. Jan. 16-17 and Jan. 23-24 and 2 p.m. Jan. 18 and 25 at the Cyrus Pavilion Theater, located on the south lawn behind Fogler Library on the University of Maine campus.
Ten Bucks Theatre Company and Orono Community Theatre pooled their resources to produce “Salesman,” which, with a 13-person cast, also is a fairly large production for a small company. The two groups also received a grant from the Maine Community Foundation to fund the show.
“When Sandy [Cyrus] from Orono Community Theatre approached us about collaborating on it, it was with the stipulation that I’d direct, that she would play Linda, that Dick Brucher would play [Uncle Ben Loman], and that Mark Bilyk would play Willy,” said director Julie Lisnet. “We held joint audition last fall, so it’s been really nice to have actors from both companies working together.”
Bilyk, a longtime Orono Community Theatre actor, has had Willy Loman on his mind for nearly a year, when the idea of producing “Salesman” first was floated. He’s been working on his lines for well over six months.
“Honestly, the lines are the scariest part. Finding the character seems less intimidating than getting all these lines down,” said Bilyk, last seen in Orono Community Theatre’s “The Real Inspector Hound” last spring. “Even now, just as the show is about to open, I’m working on a few scenes. I’m looking forward to finally having it all click into place, and I can breathe and start really exploring.”
Orono Community Theatre director Cyrus appeared in that 1976 UMaine production of “Salesman” — directed by Al Cyrus, her late husband, who was a beloved theater professor at the school and for whom the Pavilion theater is named. In 1976, she played one of several minor female roles in the play. For this production, she’s playing the female lead.
“It’s very cool in an actor’s evolution to go from playing a minor character when you first started as a performer, to playing one of the lead roles as an adult,” said Lisnet. “Linda in some ways is the toughest part, because she’s supporting the family through all this tragedy.”
Bringing both Orono Community Theatre and Ten Bucks Theatre Company to the Cyrus Pavilion Theater for the first time means a great deal to both directors — to Sandy Cyrus, for obvious reasons, and to Lisnet, who was a student of the late Al Cyrus and who performed in the theater while she was a theater major.
“We all feel so much affection for this building,” said Lisnet. “Al had his eye on the building for so long. It was a sheep barn when I was a student at UMaine. I’d walk to school, and there would be sheep out on the lawn, eating the grass. For the longest time, after it was renovated in the late 70s, when it rained for a few days you could smell manure in the theater. … There’s a lot of memories here. It means a lot to all of us.”
