Read directly off the page, the characters of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman are easy to hate. In print, the arrogance, the neediness, and the willful delusions of the Loman family come out so strong that they seem to completely deserve their unhappy lives.

Willy Loman, the man with the little boy’s name he couldn’t outgrow and a illustrative last name, has reached his early 60’s. He has made it there on a steady diet of self-delusion. He can’t pay his bills, his life is punched through with mistakes, the sons who held his pride are bums, and no one has a use for him, not even as a salesman. Willy will do everything he can to keep these facts at bay, and surrounds himself with people that help him do so. When reality begins to break his pitiful defenses, the naked soul of "Death of a Salesman" is open for dissection and examination.

Jeff Sanders, director of Pentacle’s fourth production of Salesman in their 55 years, has a play full of characters he loves and understands. The play is projected through a lens of empathy. And so, arrogance becomes tenuous hope, lies become medicine. Willy is a good guy, a clueless guy, who can’t figure out why it turned out so wrong. He did everything right, didn’t he?

Ed Kramer returns to the Pentacle stage as Willy Loman. When Willy smiles through Kramer, it’s a smile clean as a child’s, and the audience can understand why so many people in Willy’s life try to keep that smile shining. But Willy can never smile for long, and Kramer vibrates energy, projecting the full body of Willy’s unraveling.

Kramer’s depiction of Willy’s sweet nature in turn allows his wife Linda’s character, played by Kathy Straton, to be believable. We understand her willingness to look the other way, to enable, as it is so important and rewarding, to make Willy happy.

Nathan Dunkin is Biff, the favorite son of Willy who has been running from truth ever since he first came into brutal contact with it. But it is catching up to him. Dunkin has the careful job of balancing Biff’s conflict: he’s losing his ability to find safety in the old lies, or to outrun them.

Notable supporting cast include David Mort’s Bernard, a character he takes from drippy little boy to renowned lawyer, both lovable. Portraying his father, Charley, is Jeff Seeley, who uses a long-suffering, poker-faced comedy to remain Willy’s only friend. And most striking is the voice of Larry Roach, as much a character by itself as the man it comes from, as the closest thing to a father’s voice Willy has ever heard. Unfortunately it only exists as the unreachable ghost-brother of Willy’s delusions.

Set designer Tony Zandol delivers another work of art; the multi-level Loman home is like their life, hard-lined and unwelcoming. Even the chairs the actors sit in offer the thinnest support. Costuming and lighting were integral to the play. The difference between a defeated Willy and a Willy with hope is noticeable just in the lay of his suit and sweep of his hair, and the lights are used to transports memories and fears to life. Pentacle executed both skillfully.

This is an over-arching tenderness to Sander’s production. The waiter who slips Willy’s tip back into his pocket, or Willy’s boss who touches him with affection, instead of entirely reasonable scorn, after fielding Willy‘s ridiculous tantrum. And of course, Dunkin’s Biff, who can never quite replace the worry on his face with anger.

"Death of a Salesman" is one the finest plays in the history of American theatre. Most plays don’t walk into your living room to stage themselves, and use your own insecurities as their script. But Salesman has done this for generations now, without ever becoming inapplicable or stale. There were parts I shut my mind to, just like Willy would do. Truth can hurt so bad. Sometimes it can even kill.