Performing Powerhouse Sharon D Clarke On Starring In A History-Making ‘Death Of A Salesman’ On Broadway

“Hell, yes!”

When Sharon D Clarke got a call from her agent that director Marianne Elliott wanted to do a groundbreaking production of Death Of A Salesman seen through the eyes of an African American family, that was her reply.

Elliott and her co-director Miranda Cromwell’s vision was to have the Loman family, at the center of Arthur Miller’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play about the cost of chasing the American dream, played by back actors. And they wanted Clarke to play Linda Loman, the linchpin of the family who is doing all she can to keep this fractured unit together.

“I desperately wanted to be a part of it. I thought this is such an innovative way of looking at this story, opening it to so many people,” says Clarke, a performing powerhouse who is a three-time Olivier award winner, a Tony nominee, was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) and wowed Broadway audiences playing the title role in Caroline or Change. “It’s a classic play, like the American Hamlet, and I never thought that I would see myself as being cast in it.”

Clarke, whose parents emigrated from Jamaica to London, felt an instant kinship to Linda Loman, especially as she would be speaking Arthur Miller’s words through her lens. “Black women have to be strong for their families,” she says. “My mother came to Great Britain from Jamaica in the fifties. Back then there were signs that said, “No blacks, no Irish, no dogs.” They were unwelcome in a country that had called people to come and make a way out of no way.”

As Clarke, who was born in London, explains, she watched strong women like her aunt and mother doing all they could to forge friendships and relationships to improve their lot. “I watched these strong women be the glue in the family. My mom used to get the worst bits of meat from the butcher. She’d cook them up, make them beautiful and take them back to him. Then she'd started getting better cuts of meat,” says Clarke. “And she would get mangoes and oranges, juice them, make beautiful drinks and send them back to the green grocer. So he gave her better fruit.”

In 2019, Death of A Salesman debuted at the Young Vic in London with Wendell Pierce starring opposite Clarke as Willy Loman. Called a “masterpiece” and “brilliantly reimagined” the play and its cast moved to West End's Piccadilly Theatre. This past October Pierce and Clarke, who won an Olivier Award for her ferociously devastating performance, and the equally riveting Pierce revived their roles as the play debuted at the Hudson Theatre on Broadway with Miranda Cromwell directing.

In his review in the New York Times Jesse Green wrote that the play goes beyond presenting a black Loman family in the late 1940s. “It also, crucially, puts them in a largely white world,” he wrote.

All the people in their orbit, including their neighbors, Willy’s boss and even the woman who he is having an affair with, are white. At one point when Willy is in a hotel room with his white mistress and he hears someone knocking on the door, he implores the woman to stay hidden in the bathroom. “I think there’s a law in Massachusetts about it, so don’t come out,” he tells her in a panic.

In this production those words seem even more poignant and profound. “You’ve got a black man and a white woman in a hotel room. That line becomes so visceral, so tangible. You immediately see what the stakes are and it rings out clearer because it's a black family,” says Clarke.

As Clarke points out the play strikes a deep chord. “There is the resonance of what it was like just trying to climb towards the glass ceiling at a time when society was not ready for it,” says Clarke. “We are a long way from President Obama at this point in time.” She was reminded by her aunt who was a nurse in a hospital. “People told her to take her black hands off them,” says Clarke.” “That racism has been on both sides of the pond for centuries.”

When asked what she hopes people take away from Death of A Salesman Clarke answers without hesitation. “Remember your family and the wealth of love. That's the most important thing,” she says. “If Willie had not chased the dream, but really saw and trusted the love that was around him, he might still be here.”

Jeryl Brunner: Can you talk more about Linda’s strength?

Sharon D. Clarke: Linda knows how the money goes and what needs to be done in the house. She knows her children. She knows their strength and their flaws. She knows her husband and his strength and his flaws. She's basically dealing with three immature men in the house.

Brunner: Is there something you wish you could say to Linda?

Clarke: What would Sharon say to Linda? I'd say, “Babe, you did your absolute best. You could do no more. We're only now just starting to deal with mental health. And in that point in time if you say to someone, "I think my man might be losing his mind,” the men in white jackets could come and take him away.

We see them during the course of around 48 hours. It's a very short span in their lifetime. Linda knows something is wrong and says to the boys, “You have to help. And if you're not going to help, then you have got to stop tormenting him. Because you're pushing him over the edge and he's already fragile."

Brunner: You and Wendell Pierce have incredible chemistry. You can feel all the love between Linda and Willy Loman. What do you love about working with Wendell?

Clarke: Wendell is all-giving and ever playful. We find new things in the scenes all the time. We don't just settle and say, “Okay, this is a scene now.” We're always finding ways of showing our love. It was very important to us that there was a wonderful tribute to black love on stage. I grew up with that with my parents. And Wendell grew up with that with his parents. We just wanted to make sure that was seen and elevated.