If it was a challenge, it’s probably fair to say Stephens fell head-long into it and it’s a love that has been reciprocated. Since then the Stockport-born writer has written six plays for the space, four of which have been directed by Frankcom.

Light Falls marks her final production as artistic director of the venue before she takes up a new position as director of LAMDA drama school. Frankcom, who first joined the Exchange in 1998 and has been its sole Artistic Director since 2014 has been a strong driving force for new writing, establishing the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting in 2005. Given this history it is fitting that the Exchange commission a new play with a long-time collaborator to mark her departure. It also feels like Frankcom has thrown down another gauntlet to Stephens. Raising the bar yet higher – to write a play for the space in which the writing and the actors are the sole focus. Designer Naomi Dawson has transformed the space, by removing not simply a couple of rows but replacing an entire section of the theatre with plywood steps. This bare plywood extends into the round stage area, and for the most part there are no props or furniture.

It opens with an extended and at times uncomfortably graphic monologue from Christine (Rebecca Manley), a recovering alcoholic who has a brain haemorrhage while stretching for a bottle of vodka on a supermarket shelf and dies. Speaking on the other side she tells us it didn’t hurt but it was embarrassing. This dark humour runs through the play as we move across the north to where Christine’s various family members are at the moment of her death. Like Dickens’ Ghost of Christmas Past she gets to view her family from a different perspective.

Before writing the script, Stephens, who grew up in Stockport, said he and Frankcom visited various Northern towns and cities meeting people whose lives somehow echo his ancestors and are reflected in the characters on stage. As an Ode to the North it is a depressing and narrow view. All the characters’ lives are desperate in some way. The added grief of death gives them cause to open their lungs in a wail, but we sense their sadness runs much deeper. Even before news of the death hits, one has already attempted suicide and another is contemplating it.

The acting from a strong ensemble cast is excellent all round, bringing a painful humanity and rawness to many of the interactions, particularly the sadness of Lloyd Hutchinson’s Bernard – a lonely business man in search of sex, food – anything to make himself appear more interesting.

Running through the piece is Jarvis Cocker’s melancholy ‘Hymn of the North’ an original song written for the play. Repeatedly we hear the lines: ‘Please stay in touch with me. In this contactless society’.

It is here, rather than any true reflection of the north, where the play hits home. However much geography divides us, family is an invisible tie that draws us back. For Stephens, who has lived in London for the past 25 years, we sense the Royal Exchange has a family-like pull, repeatedly drawing him back to the region. Light Falls is not so much an ‘Ode to the North’ as Stephens’ and Frankcom’s ode to the Royal Exchange.

Light Falls is at The Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester from 24 October to 16 November 2019.

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Sarah Frankcom’s production, starring Don Warrington as the disillusioned, Willy Loman, doesn’t sit neatly in any timeframe. The costumes place the characters in 1950s America, but the largely bare staging, overshadowed by a full tree canopy also give it a dream-like atmosphere.

In many ways what we are watching is a dream of sorts. Miller’s original title for the play was, ‘Inside of his Head’, and for much of the action that’s what we are seeing, as Loman revisits his past in an attempt to make sense of his present.

Here the Royal Exchange’s in-the-round set up works particularly well. Designer, Leslie Travers has removed the banquettes to surround the stage with a low-seated ring, from which the various characters in Lomas’ life look on like shadows.

As the title suggests, the story follows a salesman in the last days of his life, and this heaviness envelopes the production from the start. At the centre is the complex Lomas, who after more than 30 years with the same firm is travelling hundreds of miles a day, busting a gut on a commission only contract, and borrowing money to keep up a lifestyle he can no longer afford.

The ideas of an older generation feeling discarded in the workplace; a younger generation seemingly refusing to grow-up, and the harshness of a capitalist society which holds no value for loyalty are all as relevant today as they were when Miller first envisioned his characters.

In a compelling performance, Warrington embodies the weariness of Loman, while also offering striking glimpses of the man he once was, or at least once believed himself to be. As we learn through the play, everyone has different sides, and even those closest to us don’t recognise them all.

Maureen Beattie is equally convincing as his burdened wife, Linda, who is doing everything she can to desperately hold the family and her husband’s mind together.
There is hope but it feels misplaced. Their two sons: argumentative, Biff (Ashley Zhangazha) and philanderer, Happy (Buom Tihngang) don’t have the answers or the lives they hoped.

This intricate web of family, society and psychology, requires a lot of talent to hold it together, and the whole cast is to be commended. The result is a gripping, if sobering, three-and-a-quarter hours that will stay with you for much longer.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Death of a Salesman is at The Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester from 11 October – 17 November 2018.

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