But in the scenes of the past these boundaries are broken, and characters enter or leave a room by stepping »through« a wall onto the forestage.

Whenever the action is in the present the actors observe the imaginary wall-lines, entering the house only through its door at the left. This forward area serves as the back yard as well as the locale of all Willy’s imaginings and of his city scenes. Before the house lies an apron, curving beyond the forestage into the orchestra.

The roof-line of the house is one-dimensional under and over it we see the apartment buildings. The entire setting is wholly or, in some places, partially transparent. ) At the left a stairway curves up to it from the kitchen. (This bedroom is above the unseen living room. Two beds are dimly seen, and at the back of the room a dormer window. Behind the kitchen, on a level raised six and a half feet, is the boys’ bedroom, at present barely visible.

A window opens onto the apartment house at the side. On a shelf over the bed a silver athletic trophy stands. To the right of the kitchen, on a level raised two feet, is a bedroom furnished only with a brass bedstead and a straight chair. At the back of the kitchen there is a draped entrance, which leads to the living room. The kitchen at center seems actual enough, for there is a kitchen table with three chairs, and a refrigerator. An air of the dream dings to the place, a dream rising out of reality. As more light appears, we see a solid vault of apartment houses around the small, fragile-seeming home. Only the blue light of the sky falls upon the house and forestage the surrounding area shows an angry glow of orange. We are aware of towering, angular shapes behind it, surrounding it on all sides. It is small and fine, telling of grass and trees and the horizon. (After a pause) I’ve always made a point of not wasting my life, and everytime I come back here I know that all I’ve done is to waste my life.A melody is heard, played upon a flute. And now, I get here, and I don’t know what to do with myself. And whenever spring comes to where I am, I suddenly get the feeling, my God, I’m not getting anywhere! What the hell am I doing, playing around with horses, twenty eight dollars a week! I’m thirty-four years old, I oughta be makin my future. And it’s cool there now, see? Texas is cool now and it’s spring.

There’s nothing more inspiring or–beautiful than the sight of a mare and a new colt. This farm I work on, it’s spring there now, see? And they’ve got about fifteen new colts. It’s why I came home now, I guess, because I realized it. In Nebraska when I herded cattle, and the Dakotas, and Arizona, and now in Texas. Hap, I’ve had twenty or thirty different kinds of jobs since I left home before the war, and it always turns out the same. And always to have to get ahead of the next fella. To suffer fifty weeks of the year for the sake of a two week vacation, when all you really desire is to be outdoors, with your shirt off. To devote your whole life to keeping stock, or making phone calls, or selling or buying. To get on that subway on the hot mornings in summer. Shipping clerk, salesman, business of one kind or another. BIFF: Well, I spent six or seven years after high school trying to work myself up.

Death of a salesman biff monologue