Article #281869

The brassy actor’s performance in Death of a Salesman is the crown jewel in a life spent on stage. He says it could be his last Broadway role

“It’s, like, 10 minutes. I pee, I have a cup of tea, I put the jacket back on and I go out and fight my way to the death.”

The way Nathan Lane describes spending the intermission of Death of a Salesman – the nearly three-hour play in which his character flails and ultimately fails through an epic depression – reflects the actor’s own spirit: practical, lightly fatalistic, artfully hyperbolic and very, very funny. Today he is in fine form, nestled into a corner table in New York’s classic Upper West Side haunt Cafe Luxembourg. When I ask him if Salesman marks his first time performing at the Winter Garden Theatre, he responds without missing a beat: “Yes, except when I took over in Mame.”