Lighting.DS

The original [Eli] Kazan [film version of] // Salesman // made use of more lights than were used even in Broadway musicals (// Timebends // 190). At the end of act 1, Biff comes downstage "into a golden pool of light" as Willy recalls the day of the city baseball championship when Biff was "[l]ike a young God. Hercules - something like that. And the sun, the sun all around him." The pool of light both establishes the moment as one of Willy's memories and suggests how he has inflated the past, given it mythic dimension. The lighting also functions to instill a sense of irony in the audience, for the golden light glows on undiminished as Willy exclaims, "A star like that, magnificent, can never really fade away!" We know that Biff's star faded, even before it had a chance to shine, and even as Willy speaks these words, the light on him begins to fade (68). That Willy's thoughts turn immediately from this golden vision of his son to his own suicide is indicated by the "blue flame" of the gas heater that begins immediately to glow through the wall - a foreshadowing of Willy's desire to gild his son through his own demise. Productions that omit either the golden pool of light or the glowing gas heater withhold this foreshadowing of Willy's final deed.

Similarly, productions that omit the lights on the empty chairs miss the chance to reveal the potency of Willy's fantasies. Perhaps even more important, the gas heater's flame at the end of Act I recalls the "angry glow of orange" surrounding Willy's house at the play's beginning (11). Both join with the "red glow" rising from the hotel room and the restaurant to give a felt sense of Willy's twice articulated cry: " The woods are burning!.. .There's a big blaze going on all around" (41, 107). Without these sensory clues, audiences may fail to appreciate the desperation of Willy's state.