The director Tristan Fynn-Aiduenu talks to Damon Fairclough about Death of a Salesman at the Everyman.

Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller is one of the great American plays, but for those who don’t know it, how would you summarise it?

Death of a Salesman is about the fracturing of a family. At the centre of that fracture is the patriarch of the family, Willy Loman, who I believe is in mental and spiritual turmoil because he feels like his dreams of being successful, and the dreams he has for his children, have failed. And he’s too old and too tired to keep the dream going even though he’s doing everything he can to do so.

When did you first encounter this play?

At the Young Vic in 2019. I never got to read it for GCSE or anything – even though it was on the syllabus it just never came my way. But I knew it was one of the great American plays, so watching it at the Young Vic was a real introduction to it, and I was like, “Oh wow!”

It’s a very sad, melancholic play, and an important thing about that Young Vic production, which then went to New York, was that it was an all black version.

What did you feel about the play once you’d seen it?

It was sorrowful, and I think what stayed with me was how sad it was to see this man, Willy Loman – who was played by Wendell Pierce, who is quite a mighty man – how sad it was to see someone that was so mighty literally disintegrate before our eyes. His performance was incredible and harrowing.

Death of a Salesman was first performed in 1949 and there have been many different productions since then. What are you hoping to bring to your Everyman version?

When I was researching it, I started to feel it wasn’t just about the American dream from the perspective of an American. When people talk about Death of a Salesman, often the first thing they say is it’s about the death of the American dream. But for me, the American dream is also the dream of just making it, the dream of civilization, and I think that is incredibly attractive to those that are not American – or at least, not American born.

If we take it that the Lomans were Jewish, or at least that Willy was of Jewish descent, then he would have had instances where he came into contact with his Jewish heritage – something that was away from being American. And that is the heritage of an immigrant.

And so what I became interested in is, “What if Willy was very clearly an immigrant?” That led me to delve deeper into my heritage, thinking about my stepdad and my dad and about what they’ve had to go through in trying to make it in this country. Because coming to the UK is a similar dream: “We’re going to come over here and we’re going to make it so that we can send money back home.” But often what then happens is either it becomes untenable to continue doing that, or you get swept up by the supposed freedoms and life that you can have here in the UK, so you end up staying. Then comes the new dream of wanting to be accepted as British and to thrive in these British Isles.

I think that’s very similar to the immigrants’ dream when they go to America. So if Willy was an immigrant – and specifically for me, if I’m going to dig into my heritage for this play, being of West African heritage – what does that now mean? What does that mean in terms of who he has married and who his children are, how his children see his home, and what his children consider home?

So without giving too much away, that is the crux of my perspective.

What do you think are the play’s key themes?

Maybe it’s because I’ve now turned 30, but I feel there’s something about the generational divide that exists in the play between Willy and his son Biff: the older generation saying, “This is what my dream is,” and the younger generation saying, “I don’t think we have those dreams anymore.”

And that applies to the idea of being an immigrant, saying, “This is our dream because this is what we were told would make us survive,” and then the next generation going, “Well, we haven’t been here as long as you, but we know how to manoeuvre in this land, and therefore we’re able to tell you that’s not the case.”

Another theme for me is neglect. There’s a huge amount of neglect around Willy and what he’s going through. I also think Linda, his wife, is deeply neglected, and I think Happy, the younger son, is the most neglected character in this whole play. This is a man who is in everybody’s shadow, and he’s trying very hard to rise up to the dream that everybody has for everyone else other than him.

Why do you think the play still resonates with audiences?

Basically, I think it’s a play about capitalism on a human level. I feel like we have a lot of conversations about that now, about how capitalism is costing us lives, and we’re becoming more and more attuned to that conversation at younger and younger ages. Therefore the play is timeless, because anything that’s deeply human will always be timeless.

At the same time, I also think it’s timeless because people have said it is, and there are many other plays by other playwrights that also deserve that level of timelessness. So my version of this play will uphold and celebrate Death of a Salesman in a very unique way, but at the same time, I hope it will also encourage people to search out other plays that also touch on these subjects.

How did you come to be involved in this production here at the Everyman?

I’ve known Nathan Powell, the Everyman & Playhouse’s creative director, since the days when he was an actor, and I’d been saying to him that I would love to do something in Liverpool.

I directed a play called Pig Heart Boy that toured around the UK, including the Liverpool Playhouse. Nathan saw that, and came to me and said, “What do you think about Death of a Salesman? Would it be something for you to do?”

Nathan knows I’m not someone who would just say yes based on the fact that it’s an opportunity. I’ve learned not to take on work that either I don’t believe in, or even if I do believe in it, I don’t know if I’m the right person to do it. I need to feel in my spirit that I’m the right person to do this version of this play at this moment.

So I read it, I watched it, I thought back to the last version I saw, I researched different productions of it, I listened to essays on it… and I think that with the idea I’ve come up with in terms of how I exist in it, and how my heritage lives within it, now I’m able to say yes, I’m ready to do the play.

I believe it’s your first time at the Everyman. Are you looking forward to working here?

I recently saw Waiting for Godot, which was great, and the Everyman felt like it’s so wide, it felt like I was in a film studio. And so there’s a lot of space to play with, a lot of space to cover, which means the play can feel quite immersive.

It’s exciting to be able to play with that space, but also, this will be my first proper play that I’ve directed outside London. I want this to be something I continue with – I’d like to explore more and more regional work.

But also, I wouldn’t have said yes to this project unless I felt like I could do something in conversation with Liverpool. The way we’re casting this is in conversation with what Liverpool is now. It’s about the community in Liverpool, the community that also doesn’t really get to come to the theatre in Liverpool. So we’re saying, here’s a cast and here’s an idea that responds to that community.

Finally, why should audiences come and see this show?

Because this is a production that, especially if you’re from Liverpool, speaks to the city. It speaks to the immigrant experience in a way that I don’t think any other UK production of Death of a Salesman has done before.

This is truly going to be a one-of-a-kind production!