'All My Sons': Fine reboot of Miller's classic

‘ALL MY SONS’: Tracy Letts & Annette Bening. Photo: Joan Marcus

ALL MY SONS
By Arthur Miller
Directed by Jack O’Brien
Through June 23, 2019
American Airlines Theatre
227 W. 42nd Street
(212-719-1300), www.roundabouttheatre.org

By Scott Harrah

Arthur Miller’s All My Sons is not as renowned as some of his other plays, but it is indeed one of his greatest. The tragic epic, originally produced in 1947, right after World War II, has volumes to say about war and people who profit from it, making Sons rather timely as we now live in a world where dictators are on the rise and populism and political divisiveness threaten to tear apart the U.S. and Europe. All My Sons was last mounted on Broadway back in 2008 in a production that starred John Lithgow, Diane Wiest, Patrick Wilson and Katie Holmes. Eleven years ago, the show seemed dated and mostly a vehicle for the all-star cast, but the drama is much more relevant in 2019 in this age of political chaos and instability.

Arthur Miller’s moralistic saga focuses on the emotionally fragile family of Joe Keller (Tracy Letts), owner of a factory that made defective parts for warplanes and sold them to the U.S. Air Force, resulting in crashes and the deaths of 21 servicemen. Joe’s wife, Kate (Annette Bening), is a woman in complete denial, convinced that her soldier son Larry, missing in action for over three years, is still alive. Son Chris (Benjamin Walker) spends a good portion of the first act trying to convince his parents that marrying girlfriend Ann Deever (Francesca Carpanini) is the right thing to do, and things really unravel when she suddenly arrives in town after being in New York for several years. The mother is completely against her son marrying Ann because she was Larry’s fiancé. Ann is also the daughter of Joe’s business partner, a man serving time in prison allegedly for the crimes involved with the Keller’s business.

Tracy Letts and Benjamin Walker have superb onstage chemistry as father and son. One of their last scenes—an argument that gets brutally physical—is especially effective and riveting. Mr. Letts is brilliant as the stubborn father, and Mr. Walker is marvelous as his aggressive, caustic son. Annette Bening is first rate and really looks and sounds like the Midwestern mother she’s portraying—screaming, crying and emoting in all the right places, in an authentic Middle American twang. She definitely delivers as the high-strung mother who refuses to accept reality, despite the fact that her family is deeply wounded and has completely fallen apart. Ms. Bening is primarily known for her Hollywood films and was last seen on Broadway in Coastal Disturbances in 1987. She proves she is a great stage actress here, with an imposing command of the stage.

Francesca Carpanini is perfect and peerless as Ann. She gives a scorching portrayal of Ann as a shrewd, quick-witted woman who has endured years of suffering during and after the war.

Douglas W. Schmidt’s set, featuring an old house and its yard, anchors the story well and is a big improvement over the minimalistic set in the 2008 production. In that revival, there were too many projections and video montages. Director Joe O’Brien keeps things straightforward here, with a simple black and white video projection of war planes preceding the first act. Mr. O’Brien keeps the focus on the story. Although not all cast members are up to the par of the task at hand, Mr. O’Brien gets superlative performances from the actors playing the lead roles.

All My Sons, with its ongoing themes about greed and the ugliness of war, is still topical today. Its story about the ethics of selling faulty airplane equipment is especially germane in 2019, considering all the news about Boeing, defective 737 Max jets and crashes. After the final curtain falls, All My Sons gets audiences thinking about the long-term impact of war on families, making it an unforgettable, important evening of theater.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published April 25, 2019
Reviewed at April 24, 2019 press performance.