The Loman Family Picnic [Paperback]

Using Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman as his starting point, playwright Donald Margulies presents essentially the same story from a totally different viewpoint, concentrating more on the salesman's wife and children than on the salesman himself. The result is a surprising, ironic, and black-humored musical comedy in which the circumstances which defeated Willie Loman are given a sardonic, contemporary twist. Though the characters' actions often directly parallel those in the original play, they are viewed through a radically different lens and take on new interpretations, for which the author provides three totally different endings.

In Margulies's version, Herbie Loman, the salesman, his wife Doris, and sons Stewie (age fourteen) and Mitchell (age eleven) live in a Coney Island high-rise. Stewie is about to have his bar mitzvah, and Doris has invited almost two hundred people to a celebration they really cannot afford. Stewie, fulfilling the role of Biff in the original play, has been told by his teacher that he is such a good student that he should not rule out attending an Ivy League college, eventually, though his mother declares, "We are City College. We're not like those people." Mitchell, his brother, has just studied Death of a Salesman in school. He is writing a musical comedy version of the play as his school project, and he has already completed a couple of songs.

Doris's Aunt Marsha fulfills the role of Willie's brother Ben in the original play and makes several ghostly appearances, as Doris becomes this play's central focus. When the question of how Herbie is to pay for the bar mitzvah becomes a emotional and financial crisis, the author changes the mood by launching into young Mitchell's musical comedy. In Mitchell's play, he suggests the family all go on a picnic, while he sings "What a perfect day for a picnic/ We'll toast marshmallows in the sun!"

Music is used for ironic effect throughout, with "Autumn Leaves" opening the play, and the overture to "Gypsy" and "Sunrise, Sunset" putting the action into perspective at other points. When Stewie does a soft-shoe dance in Mitchell's musical comedy, his song "Something funny with our dad...Planting carrot seeds by moonlight," takes on a dark, mordant tone. The three endings each seem plausible, depending on one's own interpretation of the events. In giving new life and a new slant to the original play, Margulies may not please traditionalists, but he may succeed in reaching a whole new audience for whom the original play may feel a bit dated. Mary Whipple