All My Sons at The Old Vic

Arthur Miller’s first smash hit, All My Sons is playing at The Old Vic and there has been a certain amount of hype attached to it, as it stars two bona fide Hollywood stars.  On this occasion the finished article really does live up to its build up because Bill Pulman and Sally Field, alongside their fellow cast members and creatives have done Mr. Miller proud.  From the moment the play starts, with an upstage screen depicting scenes from America’s past, and the clapboard middle-class house rolls downstage, it’s a given that we’re in for a very satisfying 2 ½ hours.

Jeremy Herrin hasn’t “messed” with the script or setting in any way and it’s all the better for it.  The piece is set in 1947, the year it was written, and there are no gimmicks or theories on what Miller actually meant.  Instead it’s a brilliantly crafted drama, beautifully told and acted about scepticism of the American dream and the way in which we lie to ourselves.

All My Sons centres around factory owner Joe Keller and his wife Kate (Pulman and Field) who are being visited by their idealistic son, Chris (Colin Morgan) and his friend Ann (Jenna Coleman).  The trouble is that Ann was the girlfriend of the Keller’s other son, Larry, who went missing in action three years before and Kate can’t, or won’t, come to terms with the fact that he is dead.  The visit would be fine, except Chris has brought Ann home to propose to her.  Cue displeasure from the parents, especially Kate.  More complications come from the fact that Ann was brought up in the house next door to the Kellers and that her father, Joe’s business partner, is currently in jail, possibly taking the rap for his boss.  For, despite Joe’s protestations it looks suspiciously as if he knowingly supplied the US military with defective aircraft parts during the war, that resulted in the deaths of 21 pilots.

Alongside the house, with it’s creaky screen door, Max Jones, has produced what appears to be a pitch perfect back garden.  But don’t look too closely because, as with everything else in the Keller household, nothing is as flawless as it seems. 

The casting is spot on.  There is no doubting that thanks to the brilliance of Sally Field, Kate, despite her inability to admit the truth and apparent vulnerability, is the matriarch. The loss of her son has obviously aged her almost overnight, but, despite the chronic sleeplessness and apparent living in the past, she can explosively return to the present when it suits.  You feel her pain at the beginning but wonder at her compliance at the end.  Likewise, Pullman’s Mr. Nice Guy, Joe is all hail fellow well met when the play opens but, boy, does that change.  Colin Morgan handles Chris’s intenseness and uprightness brilliantly well, whilst one would never know that this is Jenna Coleman’s first stage role.  She gives a perfectly restrained performance, thereby making her Ann difficult to read - the perfect response to the confrontation she receives from both Sue (the next-door neighbour played by Kayla Meikle) and Kate.  Oliver Johnstone also delivers a wonderfully nervy and edgy George, Ann’s brother.  He could be capable of anything!

A great production that does perfect justice to a great play.