CharlesMcNulty

No one could possibly be working harder right now on Broadway than Kristin Chenoweth, who is bearing the weight of a McMansion musical on her diminutive frame and making it seem like she’s hoisting nothing heavier than a few overstuffed Hermes, Prada and Chanel shopping bags.

'Garfield plunges to the sea-floor bottom of this fractured father-son relationship and reveals unspeakable heartbreak throughout his perilous descent. Attention must be paid to such a performance, which not only supplies the production’s turbo-charged catharsis but also reminds audiences of the incredible power of great plays when they are inhabited by an actor willing to expose those primal wounds that in real life are just too painful to reopen. ... Garfield, in one of the most emotionally naked performances I’ve ever witnessed in the theater, lets us see the crippling weight of Willy’s overblown expectations. This young man becomes the play’s protagonist in a kind of Oedipal stage reversal that is thrilling to behold. ... Nichols’ painfully timely “Death of a Salesman” may have too many flaws to be one for the ages, but Garfield has made it one that I’ll remember for as long as I live.