Michael Broughton

Theatreworks is presenting Seven Guitars in conjunction with next month's Death of a Salesman as part of a miniseries entitled 'America's Backyards.' Both productions are set in 1948 outside ordinary homes and revolve around ordinary lives. The synchronicity invites further comparisons between August Wilson's portrait of black blues musicians and Arthur Miller's masterwork. Both plays share a theme of hope against desperate odds, of reaching for the better life that The American Dream claims everyone is entitled to. Both plays feature a man who pursues that dream in defiance of everything against him, and both end in tragedy.