“IT’S a little depressing.”

Thus opined a woman at a recent performance of the new Broadway revival of “Death of a Salesman” after the curtain fell on the first act. Hers was hardly an unlikely response from a theatergoer confronting for the first time — or for that matter the third or fourth or fifth — Arthur Miller’s often harrowing portrait of a man drowning in his own delusions.

But simple sadness at Willy Loman’s plight should only be a fleeting reaction to Miller’s masterwork. As the enthusiastic response to “Life of a ‘Salesman,’ ” a series devoted to the play on the Web site of The New York Times, made clear, “Death of a Salesman” remains a touchstone work of American drama that speaks as powerfully to readers and viewers today as it did to audiences in 1949, when Miller’s dissection of the moral rot at the heart of an average American family left audiences stunned by the force of its perceptions.

More than 600 comments were posted in response to the series. We heard from actors and directors, from teachers and students, even from a few people who made their living as Willy did, riding on their own smiles and shoeshines. Most people felt a strong personal connection with the play that was evident in their impassioned, thoughtful commentary.

Some had performed in it in high school, others found in it a reflection of their own family’s dynamics or their own perceptions about the all-too-easy manner in which the fabled American dream can turn into a poisonous mirage inviting self-deception and self-destruction. I was struck, day in and day out, by how eloquent and incisive, and above all how deeply felt, many of the comments were.