Death Of A Junior Salesman

Going into this I knew almost nothing about the Arthur Miller classic Death of A Salesman - and honestly - that makes this complete reimagining by Shopfront Arts all the bolder, funnier, and more impactful. It must also be said how refreshing it is to see passionate and enthusiastic young people performing in a show that contains the term “junior” somewhere other than at the end of the title.

Directors Natalie Rose, Callan Purcell and Jasper Lee-Lindsay have handled the creation of the piece with professionalism and buckets of whimsy; you can tell it’s the product of intergenerational and interskill collaboration. Responsible adults are clearly driving the vehicle, but they’ve let the young people set the route, the destination, and go completely loose with the aux cord.

After an impressive opening sequence which errs heavily towards the original work’s classic staging, just on a youth arts budget, there is a side-splittingly comical duologue performed by Liv Tsigaropoulus and Mabelle Rose that breaks down the entire original plot and explains to an extent what we’re about to see. It feels very Shakespeare Abridged; who knew the Miller classic contained so much cheese consumption and so many poorly written women who never leave the house.

From there, well, imagine you explained the plot of the original to a bunch of young actors who weren’t really paying attention and then snapped, as adults tend to do when young people appear to have lost focus, and said, “What did I just say?” This show is what you’d get in reply. This largely devised ensemble piece takes the very vague concept and a few key lines from the Arthur Miller classic and lets young people retell the story as they see it or understand it. It moves at lightning pace, and at points the style and theatrical devices change so rapidly that it’s as if the show is set inside a TikTok feed but with much better acting, sharper social commentary, and zero AI slop. It truly is a brilliant piece of theatre.

Everyone on stage gets a chance to play Willie Loman, who works at EB Games; each vies for the role with all they can offer which includes everything from tear away costumes, to commentary on price gouging, to tooth extraction, to interpretative dance solos, and then suddenly a child has a gun.

Along with Rose and Tsigaropoulus, the ensemble of 12 talented young performers Amelia Marinos, Ben Church, Bianca Maria Pottumati, Georgia Marinos, Jaz Thoroughgood, Julia Metselaar, Kai McGarth, Mackenzie Wallace-Harris and Lucian Tesoriero, are focused, committed, and present.

The chaotic haze filled jewel box atmosphere is further enriched by Jack Prest and Frank Dwyer’s sound design, Tyler Fitzpatrick’s lighting design, and Margot Politis’ set and costume design.

The inherent and at points hilarious moments of absurdity (I see you, young person committedly ironing parts of the venue for ten minutes) are beautifully married and juxtaposed with moments of sincerity and acting levels far beyond the young cast’s years - even when they’re performing against the final Willie - an industrial fan wearing a hat.

Even layered in absurdity, the story still feels as rounded as the classic; there are still intergenerational struggles, discussions of death and purpose, and the house still falls after a gripping final monologue. This is truly what ‘youth theatre’ should be. Yes, your local musical company's production of Frozen Jr or Seussical for example are important to local communities, but productions like those coming out of the walls of Shopfront or any of their fellow youth arts companies across the country are vital to the industry and cultural ecology as a whole.

By the time of publishing this review Death Of A Junior Salesman will have concluded its run, but it absolutely deserves another life at one of the nation’s many major arts festivals whose leaders and boards have long been wondering how to better capture younger audiences - platforming and programming brilliant pieces of theatre such as this is the way to do that.

Youth Arts is the foundation of the next generation of storytellers and arts leaders, and, based on this production - the future is in good hands, and if the naysayers and those proclaiming theatre is a dying art form paid a little more attention to shows like Death Of A Junior Salesman and companies like Shopfront (celebrating their 50th birthday this year) they’d be relieved and as positive about the future of theatre as these young people are.

Joshua Maxwell

Production Photos: Lucy Parakhina