Name : Ni Wayan Suwardewi Widyastuti

NIM : 1812021008
Class : 5F
Course : Drama
Journal of the group performance

“Death of a Salesman”

A. Summary of the play

“Death of a Salesman” is a play written by Arthur Miller in 1949. It is the story that
tells about Willy Loman and his family. This story also presents a social issue in the
place where he lives, America which affects the life of Willy's family. In this story
played by several characters, namely Loman's family (Willy Loman, Linda Loman, Biff
Loman, and Happy Loman), Charley (Willy's neighbor), Uncle Ben (Willy's late
brother), Bernard (Biff's friend), and others supporting characters. The major character,
Willy is described as a salesman who lives in New York City and have traveled to many
places. Willy, a man who has thought far from reality and have always dreamed of and
show to his family that he was always successful in his job.
As time goes by, where Willy's jobs does not produce what he expected, he always
evades the fact that his various dreams will have painful ends. In the story, he always
puts high expectations on his eldest son, Biff Loman to follow in his footsteps to be a
successful salesman. Biff, who has highly respect and admire for his father, tries not to
disappoint Willy even though he has to put aside his dream of becoming a soccer player.
Yet, one day when Biff wants to see his father because he got a punishment and did not
pass an exam at his school, faced with a very shocking reality. Where he found his father
with a woman at his inn. At that moment Biff was very disappointed with his father for
betraying his family. Willy deeply regrets his actions, and keeps the secret from his wife
and second child. Biff, who at that time was on the verge of hesitating to tell his mother
or not. However, on the other hand, he did not want his parents' relationship to be ruined,
so he did not tell that tragedy.
In Brooklyn, New York, Willy Loman works for Howard Wagner's company.
However, he found that his work was not comparable like his neighbor, Charley. He felt
hopeless, but Linda always encouraged him. Besides that, Linda also advised Willy to
ask Howard's permission to work only around New York, but Howard refused it. Due to
this, Willy increasingly felt that he had failed to become a successful salesman.
 Willy's children noticed his strange behavior where they often saw him talking
nonsense to himself, especially Happy. Happy is very worried about Willy's situation
even though he never gets his father's attention. However, Willy ignored the attention
given by his family and still showed that he was fine. Despite the fact that he didn't have
any possessions to inherit. The climax of this story occurs when Willy and Biff argue
about the condition of their family which is full of things beyond reality. Willy is
devastated by not realizing the love and support provided by his family. Willy decided to
leave the house with a chaotic mind. He finally decided to commit suicide in a car
accident because he thought he could help his family financially with his death insurance
money. The story ends with Willy's family regret and Willy's funeral which is not
attended by many people.

B. My Role
Due to the pandemic that has hit throughout 2020, all learning activities that were
initially on site have become online. This also had an impact on one of the courses I took
in the fifth semester, that is Drama course. Thus, where we have to present a drama
performance together, should be split into several groups. In this case, all students in 5F
class divide themselves into groups consist of 3 to 5 members. Here my group is
consisting of 5 persons. Because of my group chose “Death of a Salesman” as our play, I
took two characters that is Biff Loman (Willy Loman's older son) and Bernard (Biff
Loman's friend). As a beginner, being an actor is not as easy as watching an actor playing
the role in a movie or a theater performance. It is really hard to do for an amateur,
especially the one who is not having enough basis in performing arts. There are some
elements that needs to pay attention intonation, gesture of our body, and the ability of
memorizing the script. Those elements become a challenge for me to be able to portray
the characters of Biff Loman and Bernard as best as I can. During the preparation time, I
found it very difficult to memorize the lines because of my nervousness. However, I
convinced myself that I could memorize and play the role I got as best I could. So I
looked for some references from YouTube about the videos or films that conveyed the
Death of a Salesman story. When I watched the video, there are some things that help me
to recognize more deeply the character of Biff Loman and Bernard.

In addition, because of the limitation of the group members, our group also divide
some division to support the preparation of this project. There are the director, script
 arranger, editor, and music designer. In this project my friends trust me to be the script
arranger to arrange the story line of our drama performance. Being a script arranger is
not an easy thing and take an important role in this project. This is because I have to
organize the storyline of the drama that we are going to show runs smoothly. Due to the
short duration set for this project, my team and I had to read the script in its entirety in
order to determine which scene will be performed. In determining the scene to be shown,
it took quite a long time because I had to summarize the storyline, so that it blends with
each other.

C. Opinion about the preparation

During the preparation time for the drama project "Death of a Salesman", there were
many things we faced from start to finish. Where these things become a new experience
for us. Apart from that, there are the strengths during the preparation process. They are:
A. Great Team Work
As this project required us to divides ourselves into several groups, it makes us work
harder. In here, we try the best as we can to work collaboratively with each other. We
do not only focus on our job, we help each other. Even though there are some
obstacles that occur, we put aside our personal ego during the practice and
preparation time in order to achieve the goals that we already set.
B. The Responsibility Between Each Group Members
Since this project in the form of group work, all members who involved have their
own responsibility in this project. Apart from our main job as actors, there are
additional divisions to support the process of making this project, namely, director,
editor, music designer, and script arranger. All members of our group are very
responsible for the job given. For example: the editor who is on time in completing
the poster before being submitted, so that the other group members can give the
suggestions.
C. Well-prepared Schedule
During the preparation time, we already set the schedule for the group discussion or
rehearsal. For example, we always do a virtual meeting and discussion on the
WhatsApp group discussing the preparation of the project based on the time that we
already set. Besides that, on E-learning it also attached the activity that we should do
every week and the criteria of this project. Thus, all our preparations are well
organized which is very helpful in the process of this project.
 There is also some weaknesses or obstacles that we faced along the preparation time
of this project, namely:
A. Time Management
Even though all the schedules have been arranged, the time management still
become one of the obstacles that we often faced during the rehearsal or preparation
process. This obstacle often occurs because the free time of each member is
different. For example, when we already planned to conduct a virtual meeting of
doing rehearsal at 1 pm, it can have started several hours later. However, we try as
best as we can to manage our time well.
B. Difficulty in Determining the Concepts
Since the concept of the drama project will be done virtually, it is one of the
important things that we have to think about from the start. During the preparation
time, it was quite difficult for our group to determine the concept, both in terms of
the scene we were going to present and the concept in the process of taking videos to
editing. Although we have decided to present "Act 1" from the of “Death of a
Salesman”, there are still various considerations in presenting this story so that it can
be enjoyable and meaningful. However, to overcome this we are looking for many
references to assist us in completing this project.
Apart from some difficulties and experience I faced along the preparation of this
project, I have learned many things. Here, I learned and also got the experience of being
an actor in a drama performance. Besides that, I learned how to work collaboratively
with other people. Also, I learned to deal and respect each other in expressing opinions
and conditions. Conclusively, this project becomes one of a great honor and a memorable
experience for me.