Thereés a reason why Norman A. Hall has a strong affinity for Jewish playwright Arthur Miller: heés a real-life Willy Loman.
In addition to his long career as a stage actor, Hall is also a door-to-door Fuller Brush salesman, and has been for 30 years.
But unlike Loman, the tragic protagonist from Millerés éDeath of a Salesman,é Hall is happily married, artistically fulfilled and professionally content.
And busy. Hall will costar in Ross Valley Playersé new production of Millerés 1968 play éThe Price,é which opens at the Barn Theater on May 12 for a five-week run.
Over the course of his career, the Novato resident has earned two San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Criticsé Circle nominations and won the Dean Goodman Choice award for his work in the 1998 Mountain Play production of éHello Dollyé and the 2003 Ross Valley Players production of éThe Sunshine Boys.é
As for the upcoming play, Hall portrays Gregory Solomon, an 89-year-old Jewish appraiser hired by two estranged brothers to evaluate an attic-full of furniture belonging to their late father, a one-time millionaire wiped out in the 1929 stock market crash.
éHe is the leavening character,é says Hall of Solomon. éHe provides the humanity of the play. Everything he says is fun and moving. Ités not a comic role, yet thereés great humor.é
Though Jewish himself and a native New Yorker, Hall found he had to work overtime to nail his characterés thick Yiddish accent. éI had a Russian-Jewish mother,é he says, ébut she spoke in a very cultivated accent.é
Hall, 59, recalls his motherés étough life,é born to two poverty-stricken immigrants forced by circumstance to place their daughter in a New York orphanage. Yet by age 18, she was living on her own with a burgeoning career as a commercial artist. Hallés non-Jewish father emigrated from England, having had a career in vaudeville.
Hall started working in the New York theater as a child, and kept it up through his 20s, even living in London for a while pursuing acting. In 1968, he moved to San Francisco to head up the Bay Area office for Grove Press. When that folded, he returned to acting, yet supported himself working as a Fuller Brush man.
éFuller Brush is a Paleolithic organization,é says Hall, éand I am the last [salesman] going door-to-door in San Francisco. No one else is going to do this wacky job.é
How wacky?
Every day after giving himself a little pep talk, Hall pounds the pavement with a samples case filled with everything from toilet brushes to ironing covers. After so many years, Hall is not ashamed to admit heés good at what he does. But it wasnét always so.
éI quit five times on my first day,é he says. éBut I had a great trainer, a real buck-and-wing fast-talking guy. One day we walk into a Greek dry cleaner on Eddy, and he says éHow are you, Mrs. Lakidakis?é She tells him her husband just died. He says, éOh thatés terrible. Do you need any germicidal?é She says, éYes, I need six.éé
Oddly, the one time Hall co-starred in a local production of éDeath of a Salesman,é he did not land the role of Willie Loman. But he still loves the classic play and its late author. éI would call Miller one of our finest dramatists,é he says, éand will always be. His star will never dim and shouldnét.é
Though Hall never got to know his Jewish relatives growing up, in recent years heés met and befriended long lost cousins who helped him connect to his Jewish heritage.
Most days, Hall is out there working the streets on behalf of the Fuller Brush Company. But when the sun goes down, ités Miller time. And to Hall, there are more similarities between door-to-door sales and performing the work of Arthur Miller than meets the eye.
Says Hall, éEvery day thereés a story.é
Ross Valley Players presents Arthur Millerés éThe Priceé 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 7:30 p.m. Thursdays and 2 p.m. Sundays, May 12 to June 18 at the Barn Theatre, 30 Sir Francis Drake Blvd., Ross. Tickets: $15-$19. Information: (415) 456-9555.