Toyt Fun A Seylsman
or Death of a Salesman

The Segal Centre presents a Yiddish version of Arthur Miller’s acclaimed play

By Byron Toben

Updated April 4, 2024

In 1949, Arthur Miller’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Death of a Salesman, was produced on Broadway to great acclaim. Lesser known was that later that year, a Yiddish translation by Joseph Buloff was also mounted. It was titled Toyt Fun A Seylsman. That gripping Yiddish version was presented as a dramatic reading, script in hand, at the Segal Centre Studio with English surtitles on February 29 and March 3.

Miller reputedly based the central character, Willy Loman, on one of his relatives in the Jewish community of Brooklyn seeking to integrate into the greater American society. The key roles of Willy were enacted by Sam Stein and that of his patient wife Linda by Bronna Levy. Their sons, Happy (David Peterman) and Biff (Mikey Samra), and Willy’s older brother, Ben (Pinchas Blitt), were his family. His friend Charley (Mark Bassel) and Charley’s son, lawyer Bernard (Jesse Krolik), were augmented by Miss Forsythe (Maia Cooper) and two unnamed women – a switchboard operator (Cheryl Cooperman) and one simply “the woman” (Asya Schulman).

Miller reputedly based the central character, Willy Loman, on one of his relatives in the Jewish community of Brooklyn seeking to integrate into the greater American society.

The reading presented a narrator, Jodi Lackman, to introduce and connect the scenes, which reminded me of the use of a narrator in the classic play Our Town. All in all, eleven actors doing thirteen roles.

Willy, a travelling salesman, had been reduced in salary and then fired when Howard, the son of the employer who had initially hired Willy, inherited the company and cut costs. Willy, who had covered Boston and the Northeast from the New York head office, was faced with automobile repair costs and dwindling income, but still felt he might recover as he was “well-liked” and all he needed was “a smile and a shoeshine.”

Pride prevented him from working for his friend Charlie. His sons’ prospects faded as Happy was only a sales clerk, and Biff’s hopes to be a professional athlete were not realized. The sons discovered his on-the-road affair with a woman to whom he had gifted nylons.

Finally, realizing he was worth more dead than alive, he committed suicide by racing his faulty car into a crash. Linda could save the house from mortgage foreclosure, and the boys get a fresh start from the life insurance paid for with money Charlie had lent him.

‘… director Adina Katz… did a bang-up job on its two performances, which validates my belief that, with a good script and fine actors, you don’t need fancy costumes, sets and choreography.’

I remember in the English original, at Willy’s funeral, Charlie uttered “Nobody dast blame this man.” At a memorial reading for Arthur Miller, it was explained that the verb dast was widely used in 1930s Brooklyn as meaning should or dare. Not sure how it translates into Yiddish. Another famous quote from the play is “Attention must be paid,” evidencing Miller’s concern about the discarding of workers.

Speaking of attention, I now pay it to director Adina Katz, who did a bang-up job on its two performances, which validates my belief that, with a good script and fine actors, you don’t need fancy costumes, sets and choreography.

“In the beginning was the Word,” says the Bible. Right on!

Feature image: Koch, Eric / Anefo, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

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Byron Toben, a past president of The Montreal Press Club, has been WestmountMag.ca’s theatre reviewer since July 2015. Previously, he wrote for since terminated websites Rover Arts and Charlebois Post, print weekly The Downtowner, and print monthly The Senior Times. He also is an expert consultant on U.S. work permits for Canadians.