All My Sons – National Theatre Live – Review
by Frank L.

Director – Ivo Van Hove
Starring – Bryan Cranston, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Paapa Essiedu, Tom Glynn-Carney and Hayley Squires

All My Sons – written by Arthur Miller

All My Sons at the Lighthouse Theatre 

All My Sons premiered on Broadway in 1947.  It was the first commercially successful play that Arthur Miller wrote. It has been adapted for the screen twice, and there have been many revivals of it in the intervening years.  The play takes place after the Second World War, but the actions of  Joe Keller and his business partner Steve Deever in relation to defective cylinder heads, which they manufactured for military aircraft during the war, lie at the heart of the story. Twenty-one airmen died directly because of the faulty cylinder heads. As is often the case, the resulting attempts to cover up the truth create even greater problems.

Joe Keller (Bryan Cranston – Breaking Bad) is a prosperous American businessman, the proprietor of his own business. He has two sons, Larry, an airman, who was reported lost during the war and Chris (Paapa Essiedu). His wife Kate (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) refuses to accept that Larry is dead and clutches at any and every straw to maintain her belief that Larry is still alive. Ann Deever (Hayley Squires) was Larry’s girlfriend and the daughter of Steve Deever, who is now in prison because of the faulty cylinder heads. Ann and Chris have stayed in touch for two years, and they now wish to marry. Kate cannot accept the idea, as Ann is Larry’s girl, and he will be coming back. What Miller reveals over three acts and approximately two and a half hours is the truth about the faulty cylinder heads, which erode the various certainties that had sustained the Keller family and thereby destroyed the Deever family.

Before the play proper begins, Kate is seen valiantly trying to hold onto a great tree in a howling wind. It eventually falls. It transpires that the tree was planted in the Kellers’ yard when Larry was born.  When the play begins, the trunk of the tree lies across the stage. The actors walk around it, over it and sit on it. The tree is a casualty of a great, catastrophic wind. It is a reminder of a fallen noble cause.

Each member of the Keller family is a casualty of the war, but also of the American Dream upon which all their certainties had been built. The play, at the time of its premiere, challenged some of the post-war certainties on which American society was based. In the current climate, it retains its relevance.

The set is remarkably simple, with the great fallen tree trunk dominating the stage. Behind it in the centre, there is a large circular disk looking like a sun or a moon. Occasionally, one of the actors appears in it. At the end of the play, it is from where Joe speaks. The simplicity of the staging ensures the viewer concentrates on the acting. Each member of the cast blends into a homogenous whole. It is spellbinding. You are immersed in these characters as their lives fracture, with Joe as the dominant force, having the greatest fracture. It is magnificent. It is tragic.

The production has won numerous theatrical awards in London. Now that the production has been filmed, it can be savoured on the big screen. It is a privilege to see it in this format.