Last Saturday, I was lucky enough to see Death of a Saleman on Broadway with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Andrew Garfield.
I don't know enough about acting lingo to properly explain why this was a fabulous show. It just was. By the second act, as Willy screaming to his boss, "you can't eat the orange and throw the peel away – a man is not a piece of fruit!," I had my scarf over my face. At the end, strangers turned to each other and mouthed "wow."
Strangers also whispered to each other about the stars in the audience. Woody and Soon Yi! Harvey Weinstein! In typical New York fashion, everyone avoided gawking. No one approached them. But a quick search of twitter after the show found that nearly everyone in the audience was tweeting about the famous people in the theater.
Including me. I'm not proud.
On the way home, we reminded ourselves that we're lucky indeed. Dinner at a French bistro and a Broadway play. Luck is ours.
We also talked about whether or not the play still works. In some ways, the critiques of capitalism makes sense during this economic depression and the era of the 99%.
But other parts of the play felt dated. We weren't sure about that anyone cares about being "well liked" anymore. Who wants their kid to be voted the "Most Popular" kid, rather than the "Smartest" kid? No one but Oprah is on the Forbes' richest list for being popular. On the other hand, we're all counting our followers on Twitter and friends on Facebook. So maybe we do care. Just in that subtle New York sort of way.
Apt. 11d 
I’ll take something in between for my daughter. I know lots of smarty pants people who didn’t get very far without social skills to be successful.
And your luck extends to seeing great theatre in NYC!!!
LikeLike
Maybe I’m not New York enough. I think tons of people still care about being well liked, and would want their kids to be voted Most Popular.
LikeLike
You want to be at least a little bit popular, so that nobody gives your name to the cops unless you’ve done something really bad.
LikeLike
But other parts of the play felt dated. We weren’t sure about that anyone cares about being “well liked” anymore. Who wants their kid to be voted the “Most Popular” kid
I agree it is dated, but I think maybe in the opposite way you are suggesting. Willie was a traveling salesman in a job where his value to the company was directly linked to how much product he sold. When he got old and couldn’t sell well anymore, it turned out that being “well liked” didn’t actually get you anything if you couldn’t keep making your sales quotas.
I think today, there are a lot fewer Willie Loman jobs (how many traveling salesmen are there any more? certainly not of the door-to-door variety) and a lot more jobs where being well liked actually IS more important than any particular hard job target. Willie Loman — Shift Manager at the Macy’s Men’s Department — probably could get by more on being “well liked.”
Meanwhile, my grandfather was a salesman who could have been Miller’s model for the character. I haven’t been able to see the play since he died, because it is really too close — personality, time frame, relationships with spouse and children . . .. The biggest difference is that he died of natural causes and he went by “Bill” instead of “Willie.”
LikeLike
Apparently, Penelope Trunk agrees with me.
http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2012/03/06/new-skills-you-need-to-get-a-job-now/
1. Forget about being smart.
The first thing you should not be is smart. You know that great American idea that we are a meritocracy? Well, it’s true, except it’s not a meritocracy based on hard work, we’re a meritocracy for good social skills.
We used to place high value on people who were walking Encyclopedias. Now we don’t need those sorts of people, and, in fact, they are weird. Their formerly very-useful ability to store data is relegated to parlor tricks now that we have computers.
Willie Loman — you were just a man ahead of your time.
LikeLike
Ahead of his time on the importance of social skills or airbags in cars?
LikeLike
Cool. Let’s make this a new post and throw it out to the readers. (Then I’ve got to take a kid back to the pediatrician.)
LikeLike
“(how many traveling salesmen are there any more? certainly not of the door-to-door variety)”
Oh, lots. There are so many sales jobs, in every field imaginable, and people who are good at it make immense amounts of money. My parents are in retail, so they deal with sales reps all the time. (When I was a teenager and working at the family store, my least favorite was the old school postcard/trinket salesman with a flashy ring who told my mom that she and I looked like sisters–blech.) The sales reps visit the store with samples, you see them at the gift show, the outdoor show, etc.
Now, it is true that some sales people are getting disintermediated. Realtors, for instance, are really hurting. (But then you have a guy like Jim the Realtor at bubbleinfo.com who is knowledgeable and has lots of hustle, and he’s worth his weight in gold.) I expect car salesmen are also in jeopardy. But at the wholesale level, sales reps are indispensable.
LikeLike
I can tell you that the number one skill anyone (from housekeeping to CEO) in my organization has to have is friendliness. If you can’t strike up a conversation with just about anyone, you aren’t the right fit.
Now we are an organization that emphasize health and wellness, but we can’t do that very well if you don’t like us.
So we hire friendly, well-liked people. We forgive the errors of the well-liked people once you’re on the job. We’ll get you additional training and nurture you in other areas. Flip side is if you are great at every thing else but have a negative attitude (or sometimes if you’re even too quiet), you will likely not be with us for long.
LikeLike
I work with medical people and number crunchers. Everybody tries to be friendly but some of them just suck at it. I stopped trying because I can’t be sober and friendly all at once.
The friendly people can sell medical equipment and make better money than me.
LikeLike
MH, I’m actually opposite, I can always be friendly sober. But intoxicated? That can turn sarcastic. Needless to say, I don’t drink with coworkers or members.
LikeLike
There are still a number of scholarships — like the Rhodes — which look for extroverts, rather than introverts.
Also, Laura, the fact that you’re discounting the appeal of being ‘popular’, may be an artefact of the place where you live and your own SES. Where we live (deep south-ish), I can name plenty of dads who would be more upset if Junior didn’t make the football team than if he got a C in math; and plenty of moms who would be more upset if Ashleigh didn’t make the cheer squad than if she FAILED math. Academia is probably the ONLY place where being introverted is considered a plus. Think about the way that people make fun of Newt Gingrich for being a ‘nerd’ (among other things). Aren’t POLITICIANS at least supposed to be smart enough to be able to solve the country’s problems?
LikeLike
I have been thinking of this phrase ever since you posted this:
“you can’t eat the orange and throw the peel away – a man is not a piece of fruit!”
…and scheming about how to get to NYC SOON to see both the Cindy Sherman at MOMA exhibit and DOASM.
LikeLike
Discarded fruit peels make me think of NYC also.
LikeLike