Nottage on Miller: “This Is America, Right?”

This article argues that Death of a Salesman is part of the American cultural history that Lynn Nottage engages with in Sweat, her play about forced unemployment in Reading, Pennsylvania. Echoes of Miller plays in Sweat are nuanced and often ironic, but they contribute to the play’s presentation of continuing problems with the American myth of prosperity and hard work. The article discusses Miller’s and Nottage’s uses of structure and time to bring the past to bear on the present, and to instigate and unsettle audiences.