I won't insist that “Death of a Salesman” is the most moving or profound, but I think it is the most universal: It translates to different cultures in a way Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams and Sam Shepard do not. Playwright Arthur Miller famously mounted a production in China in the 1980s, and the Chinese took it right to heart.

“Salesman” spoke to the public and critics at once; it ran for 742 performances and was the first play to win the Tony, Pulitzer Prize and New York Critics Circle Award. It captured the mood of postwar restlessness in America, the feeling that life had to hold more than the endless struggle to meet a mortgage and pay off appliances that died as soon as you fully owned them.

The title role has been played successfully by men large (Brian Dennehy) and small (Dustin Hoffman), forceful (Lee J. Cobb) and mild (Thomas Mitchell), dignified (Fredric March) and blunt (George C. Scott). It works almost equally well on stage or screen.

Most crucially, the play benefits from a professional production but works in a local version done with heart. Theatre Charlotte's 1998 “Salesman,” which starred Charles LaBorde as brooding Willy Loman, won the Southeastern Theatre Conference's community theater competition. LaBorde will direct the piece when it opens March 12 at Theatre Charlotte, and I look forward to yet another round.