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Its not easy being Willy Loman. You cannot play that role--you become the famous salesman--in Arthur Millers tragedy, Death of a Salesman. Being Willy Loman is riding an emotional roller coaster: you dreamthen boast, beam, seethe, rant, cheat, lie, beg, plead, stare off into space talking to yourself, full of delusionsand then you dream some more. Willys reality is the pastglory days. Everything was going according to the plan, but the planlifedoesnt always go the way you want. Most people accept that. But Willy wouldnt. He couldnt face it--reality. It was too painful to see failure in his sons, to see the never-ending sadness in his wife Lindas eyes.

Willy was a salesman

Willy was a salesman, said his neighbor and friend Charley, and for a salesman there is no rock bottom to the liferiding on a smile and a shoeshine; and when they start not smiling backboy, thats an earthquake. His work was not productive. Willy did not create anything tangible that he could hold in his hands. So he held onto his dreams.

Willy Loman lived through his son, football star Biff

Willy pinned all his hopes and dreams on his boysreally only on the older Biff. His other son, Happy, was left in the dust in his fathers eyes. Willy worked hard his whole life, traveling and selling, traveling and selling--and then dragging himself home to the old house in Brooklyn. What made it all worth while--was going to make it all worthwhilewas Biff, the high school football star, getting a football scholarship to the University of Virginia. But Biff failed math and never went to the university of anything.

All of Willys dreams crumbled into dust. And he kept traveling and selling and dragging himself homebut now his dreams were dead. And he died with them. And all he had then were the ghosts of those dead dreams. And other dead dreams of the past that never panned out. Willy kept living the dreams as if they were on the verge of becoming reality. Like his brother BenWhy didnt I go to Alaska with my brother Ben? Ben!that man was a genius,success incarnate! We never find out if anything he says about Ben is true.

Willy Loman is a broken man

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor_model Willys first moment on stage we see a broken man. Hunched over, carrying his garment bags in both hands as he returns home after a failed attempt to get past Yonkers from Brooklyn, New York. Willy is mercurial: one minute deeply afraid of his loosing control of his facilities, the next reminiscing about a nostalgic what might have been if followed by anger and rage over the perceived failings of his son, Biff.

Willys talking to himself is all he has left

Willy drifts back into the past to escape the reality of lifes crushing blows to his body and soul. A thought, a word, something crosses his mind--and hes remembering the smell of flowers from years before. Then he remembers his old Chevy from 1928, and he is back in time. Just Willy. Biff and Happy are embarrassed as they hear him talk to himself in their bedroom. They drift off to sleep as their father drifts off to relive moments that make him feel alive again. Its all in Willys mind, but its really all he has left to live for.

Would I become Willy in my childrens eyes?

Being Willy Loman made me raw emotionally. It made me think of my own life, my successes and failings. How would my own children see me when I was older? Will I drift into the past to escape my own reality? Sure, I had hopes and dreams for my own children, but I wasnt going to live through them. I hadnt given up on my own dreams. I was still working on making them come true. I knew the risks--that maybe nothing would pan out. I could be objective about Willy Loman, but I also knew that life does things to people that you can never plan for. Like what happened to my father.

My personal Willy Loman, my father

My father, Stanley, was my own Willy Loman. I had never thought of him in that light until I was preparing for the role and later performing it. When I was in Death of a Salesman, my father was 80 years old and had dementia. He also was immobile and used a wheelchair to get around. But it was his aide that helped him get around. He had given up at being at all self-sufficient.

Before his illness took hold, my father was a big time schmoozer. He always had things to say. When I was younger it was a struggle between my own goals and what he had in plan for me. He always said that I was going to make a million dollars working in his and his brothers mail order business. I saw it as a job. My goal then was to be an actor and singer, not a mail order eyeglass business millionaire. My dreams became his curse. He https://www.facebook.com/kurdishactor