Culture writer Joel Bishton reviews Arthur Miller’s classic play All My Sons, discussing the thematic relevance of the play’s revival and praising the effective set
When reviving a play, there is always the question of relevance. Why this play, why now? What can this play tell us about now? These questions occurred to me while watching the Crescent’s production of Arthur Miller’s 1946 play All My Sons, directed by Rod Naktiel.
The play concerns the Keller family, a standard middle-class American family, who are dealing with the aftermath of the Second World War. One son, Larry, was lost in the war, but his mother Kate refuses to accept this. This means that the other son Chris can’t move on and marry Larry’s sweetheart Ann. All of this is tied up with what the family patriarch Joe did or didn’t do in the war, concerning a batch of cylinder heads which malfunctioned, killing twenty one pilots (yes, that’s where the band name came from). If I tell you the play is a family tragedy, it will give you a certain idea of where it is going, though the exact ending was a surprise.
The tragedy of it is extremely well-planned and structured, without obviously being so (though the final act appearance of a key character is questionable, and exacerbated by the decision to play the first two acts straight through before the interval, with the third act coming afterwards). The play was Miller’s first major commercial success and helped establish him as a major 20th century American playwright.
the play is tackling with universal themes of family, capitalism and what we owe to each other
All My Sons is a very American play. It presents an image of suburban Ohio and is often read as a deconstruction of ‘the American Dream’ (the idea that anyone can be anything if they try hard enough). How well this translates into Britain is up for debate. We do have an instinctive understanding of American suburbia from our import of American culture, but the finer points were lost on me, which they probably wouldn’t be on our American cousins.
The English equivalent is probably An Inspector Calls. A left-wing playwright (All My Sons got Miller accused of Communism and pulled up in front of Congress) writing a play about the failures of their countries and the need for collective responsibility. It got to the point where I started mentally quoting ‘there are millions and millions of John Smiths’ etc.
There are key differences, though. All My Sons is contemporaneous and based on a true story. It also is part of a different dramatic tradition, being a tragedy. It fits in to an idea of the American family tragedy, parodied in The Goes Wrong Show’s ‘90 Degrees’. It coincides with an era of American playwrights using the family to look at wider societal issues, with plays by Tennessee Williams and Edward Albee.
This is not an easy night out at the theatre, but it is a strong and rewarding one for those willing to see it
The Crescent’s production is very well done. It’s the Main House, meaning it has more budget and technical possibility than Bleak Expectations (the last show I saw at the Crescent), and it uses this well. The set is impressive, and there is excellent use of sound to suggest a world beyond the back porch of the house where the play is set.
Even the description of a ‘back porch’ may make this seem like an alien landscape, unwelcome to visitors who don’t know the lingo. But underneath, the play is tackling with universal themes of family, capitalism and what we owe to each other.
This is not an easy night out at the theatre, but it is a strong and rewarding one for those willing to see it.
Rating: 4/5
All My Sons runs at the Crescent Theatre, Birmingham, from 28 Sep – 5 Oct 2024
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