Arthur Miller was born in New York in 1915 and was attracted to the arts by his mother – his father owned a successful coat and suit business. He wrote his first play in 1936 whilst at college, a piece called “No Villain” for which he received great praise. This encouraged him to switch to an English course where he excelled under the guidance of Professor Kenneth Rowe. His first play to get mainstream recognition was “The Man Who Had All The Luck” although it lasted on Broadway for only 6 performances. This gave him credibility on Broadway where he went on to write his most famous works of “Death Of A Salesman” in 1949 and “The Crucible” in 1952 which are played in venues across the country today. “All My Sons”, which he wrote in 1947, doesn’t quite attract the same adulation but nevertheless it is a classic Miller piece of work.
The venue for tonight’s performance was a small theatre in the heart of Twickenham – The Mary Wallace Theatre. This was my first visit to the venue but most definitely not my last. It has an abundance of character from the exposed brickwork that you see in the small foyer and in the theatre itself all the way through to the staff who operate the venue and have clearly been doing so for many years. The audience appears to be one of mostly local residents but with a sprinkling of people who have travelled a little further like myself.
As the curtains open for the evening’s performance, my first reaction is on just how professional the set looks for this production. Whilst the set is static for the whole play, the garden setting of The Keller’s home is very well built but shows an accurate level of natural decay that you would find in the 1940s post war era in the USA – all 3 acts take place in the garden but lighting changes help to determine the time of day.
The main characters in “All My Sons” are The Keller family – father Joe Keller (Simon Bickerstaffe), mother Kate Keller (Dorothy Duffy) and son Chris Keller (Jack Lumb). There is another son Larry but he was reported missing during the war – presumed dead by all apart from his mother. This is a constant theme throughout the play where Kate is unable to accept that her son is not still alive. We get to meet most of the rest of the cast throughout the first act with Ann Deever (Sarah Imran) arriving at the Keller’s home after being invited by Chris. She was the next door neighbour many years previously and had been the sweetheart of Larry until the point of his disappearance – but had long since accepted he would not return. Chris was planning to ask Ann to marry him during the visit. We also met Dr Jim Bayliss (John Mortley), a rather eccentric neighbour and local doctor who was clearly dominated by his wife Sue Bayliss (Claire Driver) – he was very rarely out of her sight. The storyline focuses mainly on the relationships between the different members of the Keller family and the re-introduction of a close partnership with the Deever family from many years ago. Ann was about to become the bride of Chris but it was her father who was closest to Joe Keller, they were partners at the Aeronautics plant that was now run solely by Joe Keller. Steve Deever had been Joe’s partner until he was convicted of supplying defective aircraft parts to the US war effort which resulted in 21 pilots being killed when their planes went down.
Act 2 is where the plot moves on when we meet Ann’s brother George Deever (Ben Willows) who is now a lawyer and has recently met with his father. Steve had always maintained his innocence and blamed Joe Keller for those defect parts being shipped and George had arrived at the Keller’s house to take his sister home and to confront Joe about the events that led to the death of the 21 pilots. This results in some very dramatic and emotional scenes during Act 3 where each of the strands of the plot come together.
This was the first time I had seen “All My Sons” performed and whilst I knew the general storyline, I wasn’t prepared for a plot that explored the emotional relationships between the families in the way this production did. Whilst I have no comparison to point toward, I feel sure that Arthur Miller would have approved of this production as it demonstrated the plot perfectly. I also feel I need to make special reference to the acting skills of Jack Lumb who brought to life the character of Chris Keller – the emotional scenes with both his father and with Ann towards the end of the play were very special.
Reviewer - John Fish
on - 26/3/19
No comments:
Post a Comment