Longtime local theater stalwart Dwight Martin is making his return to Mānoa Valley Theatre this month. Martin was the theater's producing director from 1980 to 2019, but he's back as an actor this time.
He is set to play the beleaguered main character Willy Loman in MVT's production of the 1949 stage classic "Death of a Salesman." The play revolves around Loman in his final days as he contemplates his accomplishments, his failures — and the American Dream.
"When a role comes along that you feel as an actor will be in your age range, and that you might have the temperament for, you just got to go present yourself and audition. I deliberated for many months on whether or not to audition for 'Death of a Salesman,' in part because the role that I'm playing, Willy Loman, has a massive amount of dialogue to learn, and I wasn't sure I could do that anymore," Martin said.
"So Christmas week, I started memorizing the script, 10 weeks before the audition. And yeah, it was still going in, sticking in there somewhere," he said.
Martin said he also felt that he had the emotional composition from his own life that would help inform his portrayal of Loman.
"He's a very emotional man. I'm rather emotional. And I just could relate to him. I thought, you know, whether or not the director sees it is up to her when she runs the audition. But I felt that I could find Willy in me, in my spirit, in my soul, in my energy, and render him on the stage," Martin told HPR.
"He is an everyman kind of figure, I think. The things that are important to him, self-esteem, family, success in his profession, are things that I think are important to everybody. They were to me, they are still to me. And he's just a fascinating character."
"Death of a Salesman" will run from May 23 through June 9. Click here for tickets.
This interview aired on The Conversation on May 20, 2024. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1.
