I'm Jonathan K. Parton, welcome to K-Part.

Death of a salesman is Arthur Miller's classic drama, a tragedy, really, about a man's

tortured relationship with the American Dream and its impact on his family and the people

around him.

Each revival of the classic has featured a white actor as the protagonist, Willie Lohman,

until now.

Venorable actor, Wendell Pierce, best known for his role in The Wire, brings his heft to

the role, not only that.

For the first time, the Lohman family is black in this latest revival.

In this conversation, first recorded for Washington Post Live on October 24, Pierce talks about

how death of a salesman can be seen in a whole new light, but the black family, without

changing a word of Miller's classic.

It is a depiction of the African American experience and humiliation of racism, the ugliness

of the American paradox, that you see how destructive it is to a community, how destructive

it is to a family, how it is institutionalized in our policies and laws, but also in our

cultural morays, and how destructive it can be to an individual's humanity.

So Wendell, what does it mean to you to play Willie Lohman first as an actor?

This is one of the great challenges of the American canon, this classic play that has challenged

actors for the past 70 years.

From the moment it was introduced, it was groundbreaking, it was one of the first times

really, we even deal with the idea of flashbacks and a man and character having to deal with

the repercussions of his past and his actions in the past, it is a deep psychological dive

...