Word: ducey
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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David Javerbaum, as Willy's son Biff, starts out less strongly than does O'Keefe and never seems quite settled in his character's exchanges with his brother Happy (John Ducey). But Javerbaum is most convincing when it counts, and scenes between Willy and Biff convey all the stifling agony of their relationship. Javerbaum is also especially skillful in handling Biff's striking shift from a hopeful high school football hero to a disillusioned, directionless 34-year-old who feels cheated by his father's hypocritical expectations...
Hill's production of Miller's classic is so nearly perfect that even less central characters contribute their share to the play's convincing truthfulness. Ducey is sweetly sincere as Willy's neglected but aiming-to-please second son, Happy, who picks up Willy's fractured dream and vows to fulfill it after his father's death. Chip Rossetti puts out a convincing performance as Willy's boss Howard, but it is unfortunate that he has been forced to play three different parts throughout the drama. Two of these are pivotal characters in Willy's demise, and casting Rossetti...
...Miss Emily Brent, an aged spinster, Andrea Thome manages to keep her back erect and her opinions prim even as her peers die in hideous fashion. John Ducey adopts the physical mannerisms of an old fogey perfectly, and his General Arthur MacKenzie shambles from place to place in a manner that is both disconcerting (Ducey's mouth hangs open for much of his time on stage) and endearing (when he apologetically requests a certain seat because "that's where my chair is at the Club...
...Murphy, John Ducey and Valerie Mulhern, who play the imaginary husband, brother and daughter respectively get funnier as the show loses its comprehensibility. Their comic timing is especially good in the puppeteer scenes, where these apparitions induce Susan to do their bidding...
Alexander Pak, as the obsequious sub-angel responsible for the mix-up, cringes and whines in just enough of an English accent to suggest a salesman at Harrod's in the presence of a gold card. Slippery and oh so discreet, he makes an hilarious foil for Ducey's bull-in-a-chinashop Bostonian...