...Robert Auletta Copyright © by yale/theater 1974 1974 Walk the Dog, Willie Robert Auletta Copyright 0 by Robert Auletta 1974 CHARACTERS...

... opens onto the kitchen. Dominating Artistic Director In a subsequent production at the Hun- the parlor is an old upright piano. On presents tington Theater, Boston, the role of Boy Willie the legs of the piano, carved...

...<gdown thefloor wilh a bucket of water Wesley Fata atid a rag, is IVillie. Also blmk and about the same a,qe as Sam. He ha3 his sleeves and Directed by trousers rolled up. Athol Fugard The year: 19.50.) WILLIE: (singing as he works “She was a First Performance: March 12, 1982 scandalisin my name The play subsequently opened at the Lyceum Theater Called it love but was playin a game . . .” up in New York, on May 5th with Lonny Price replacing (He gets and moves the bucket. Stands thinking for a moment, then raising hzs anns to Zeljko Ivanek. In November, 1982, Zakes Mokae hold an imaginary partne?, h.e hunches into an was replaced by James Earl Jones intricafe ballroom dance step. Although a mildly cotnic.fi&re he reuvals a reasonable degree of CAST accomplishment.) Hey Sam. (Sam, absorbed SAM Zakes Mokae in thP comicbook does not respond.) He Boet Sam! (Sam looks- up) I’m getting The WILLIE Danny Glover it. Quickstep. Look now and tell me. (He HALLY Zeljko Ivanek repeats the Jtep.) Well? The entire action takes place in the St. Georges Park Tea SAM: (He wasn’t concentrating.) Show me, Room on a wet and windy afternoon in Port Elizabeth South again. WILLIE: Okay, count 4for:me. Africa. The year: 1950. SAM: Ready? - WILLIE: Ready 6 SAM: A-n-d one two three four . . . . who are dancing their way to a happy cn- W1LLIE:’So what you say? and one two three four. . . . Relax ding. What I saw was you holding her SAM: About Hilda? WiIlie! likc you were frightened she was going to WILLIE: Ja. WILLIE: (desperate but still dancing) I- am run away. SAM: When did you last give her a relax. WILLIE: Ja! Because that is what she hiding? SAM: No you’re not. wants to do! I got no romance left for WILLIE: (reluctantly) Sunday night. WILLIE: (he.fal&.r) Ag no man Sam! Hilda anymore Roet Sam. SAM:.And today is Thursday. Mustn’t talk. You make me mr&c SAM: Then pretend. When you put your WILLIE: (hknows what’s conring.) Okay. mistakes . arms around her imagine she is Ginger SAM: Hiding on Sunday night, then SAM: Rut you’re too stiff. Rogers. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday she WILLIE: Yesterday I’m not straight WILLIE: With no teeth? You try. doesn’t come to practice . . . and you are . . . . today I’m too stiff! SAM: Well just remember, there’s only asking me why? SAM: Well you are. You asked me and two weeks left. WILLIE: I said okay Boet Sam! I’m telling you. WILLIE: I know, I know! (to thejuke-box} SAM: You hit her too much. One day WILLIE: Where? 1 do it better with music. You got SIX- shca‘s going to leave you ibr guvci. SAM: Everywhere. Try to glide through pence for Lena Horne? WILLIE: So? She makes rrie the hell-in it. SAM: That’s a slow foxtrot. You’re prac- too much. WILLIE: Glidc? ticing the quickstep. SAM: (emphasizing hzs point) Too much SAM: ,la, make it sniooth. And give it WILLIE: I’ll practice slow foxtrot. and loo hard. You had the same troublc more style, it must look like you’re SAM: (shaking his had) It’s your turn to with Eunice. enjoying yourself. put in money. WILLIE: Recause she also make the hell- WILLIE: (emphatzcal~)I wasn’t. WILLIE: I only got busfare to go home. in Boet Sam. She never got the steps SAM: Exactly. (He returns disconsolakly to his work.) Love right. Even the waltz. WILLIE: How can I enjoy myself? Not story and happy ending! She’s doing it SAM: Hiding ever time you rriakc a straight, too stiff and now it’s atso glide. alright Boer Sam but is not me she’s giv- mistakc in the waltz? (shaki~~qhis head) No give it more style, make it smooth . . . . ing happy endings. Fokin Hoar! Three Willie! That takes the pleasurt. out of’ Haai! It’s hard to rememhtxr all those nights now she doesn’t come practice. I ballroom dancing. things Boet Sam. wind-up grmaphone, 1 get rccord ready WILLIE: Hilda is not too bad with the SAM: Tliat’s your trouble. You’re trying and I set and wait. What happens? W’altz Hoet Sam. Is the quick-step where too hard. Nothing. Ten o’clock I start dancing with the trouble starts. .WILLIE: I try hard because it is hard. my pillow. k’ou try arid practice romance SAM: (tcmin,phim y~ntly)How’s your SAM: But don’t let me see it. The secret by yourself Boet Sam. Struesgod, she pillow with the quickstep? is to makc it look easy. Hal1 room must doesn’t c01rit‘ tonight I take hack my chss WILLIE: (igtzon‘ng th~PUP) Chnd! And look happy h’iilie, not likc hard work. It and haiiroum shoes and I tind nie a new why? Rcc:aase it got no Icgs. That’s her rnust. . . . Ja! . . . it must look like partner. Size tkventy-six. Shoes six trouble. She can’t xnoL*c‘them cluick romance. seven. Anti now she’s also making t~*ouble cnough Boer Sam. I start the rccord and WILLIE: Now another one! What’s for rrie Lvith the baby again. Reports me txfore halfway Count Hasey is already romance? to child Lt’ellfed, that I’m not gi\iirig her winnirig. Only time we catch-111, tvith hirn SAM: 1,ove story with happy ending. A money. Stir lies! Evrry\i.eek I am giving is whvn the gi-aniaphone runs down. (Swz hmcisome man in tails, and in his arms, her nioney for milk. And how do I know Inughs) Haaikona Boet Sam, is not funnv. smiling at him, a beautiful lad>-in is my baby? Only his hair looks like nit:. SAM (snappin,a hl‘rjz‘ngm) I got it! Give elmi n g dress ! She’s fucking-around all the tirrie I turn her a handicap. WILLIE: Fred Ast;-tire Ginget. Rogers. my back. Hilda Sarnucls is a bitch! WILLIE: What’s that? SAM...

... Dustin Hoffman, as Willy Loman, enters of Death Ofa .SZmnan still surrounds many un- the office of Howard Wagner, his former fortunate citizens who remind us all of the employer‘s son now running the firm...

... true his wife; he perceives Loomis’ mental -Boy Willie -Lungston Hughes elevation the moment bmishas under- 70 gone a private purging ritual. reactions against the shadow of the past The source of Herald Loomis...

..., was all, Miller has not written a serious Recognition" and "Many Writers: Few Willy Loman, and the playwright's am• Plays") are simply empty exhortations, full dramatic work for 10 years, so the reprint• bitious brief on behalf of his contemporary...

... and crawling Laughlin) battle a Renegade Spirit, Greed blue collar workers, Irene (Laughlin) and figures creep along the drawn blinds during (W.D. Hunt). The play arose out of a Willie Rae (Dawdy). Irene works as a Irene’s nightmare; Irene and Billy ride desire to create an alternate world...

... again, etc. W1 L LIE MAE is reading a newspaper. MICKEY is bent over a copy-book.) WILLIE MAE: Sammy, it says here they're looking for men to work on down at the can company. (SAMMY wits) It's not far, Sammy, it's just a short subway ride. And they're paying good. Sammy! You...

... this pastiche of signifiers, Lamar sings his text as Willie Francis, a young Special Effects, New York, 2014. Photo: black man who was executed for the murder of a white man in St. Martinville, Loui- Annie Malamet siana, in 1947, and as an unnamed black slave on an 1847 Alabama cotton plantation.5...

... and Willie laugh. Was that laugh something you and Danny Glover invented, or was it a directorial decision. And what are you laughing about? Athol didn’t tell us to laugh there. But it’s funny to them. Sam and Willie have a good laugh. They can relate. What else can you do? There are a lot...

... strains of it are sold to the were not there. He is thirsty and does enjoying themselves. Some things is white man? Berneice and Boy Willie not know the city well enough to look worth taking the chance going to jail struggle to resolve a similar question in for another bar where he would be wel...

... the familiar main plot concerns the false values of Willy Loman, but most celebrated post-war American dramatist, and the strongest the character who confronts Willy with the fraudulence of his influence on the American realist theater. Miller first...

... presented in the works of mainstream Amencan the of the poet.” playwrights. (A cursory list might include all of touch O’Neill’s characters, Miller’s Willy Loman and Quentin...

..., is an act of surrender-a qualified or perhaps even an absolute denial of your own time, your own space. Garneau admits, with characteristic whimsy, that Shakespeare terrified him (“j’ai eu terri- blement peur de Willie; c’est un fktiche, Willie, on l’a rendu magique, on l’a mythifik, on se mysti...

... of modern American drama,” and turns the tables by locating the only Steven Oxman female resistance in the play in Linda’s apparent opposite, Willy’s laughing mistress. Beginning...

... “Stuff (or beneath 14th Street, if you will) of the authorities: Peggy for 2 faggots to do,” and Willie-Willie-Bill’s Dope-Garden, “a Shaw and Lois Weaver, Holly Hughes, Carmelita Tropicana, meditation in one act on Willa Cather in which four Reno, the WOW Cafe people, all play regularly...

... one’s spirit. do. (Danny Glover was still playing the role of Willie then.) After we finished on Broadway and went on tour, it was different; Would it be fair to say that each of the roles you have portrayed the Yimb” factor became less possible, less sensible, and I had to bring in Fugard’s...

... forces of history, the inexorable forces of economics. Student: What about a play like Death of A Salesman where Arthur Miller attempted to make of the sociological and cultural structure of America an ineffable super- 6 natural force acting on Willy Loman? Miller: \t wasn't...

... Copyright 1968 by yale/theatre 1968 Photo credits: Ashok Dhawan, cover John Willis of Theatre World, page 56 Joel Katz, pages 41,42, 45, 46,50 Joseph Cazalet, pages 33, 378, 38, 54, 59,61 !.T Hellenic Center's Review Thespis No. 4/5-Sina Str. 4-Athens 135 Greece, pages 35, 37A...

..., premiered at Live Arts Bard in April 2017 as part of the surveillance biennial We’re Watching. With four performers — Marguerite Hemmings, Jessica Pretty, Tara Willis, and the onstage sound designer Jeremy Toussaint-­Baptiste — the piece explores racial violence and the psychic and bodily dimensions...