All My Sons review: a revival of Arthur Miller’s classic with an all-star cast
Bryan Cranston confirms his status as one of the greatest living actors in an intense critique of cold-hearted capitalism.
Bryan Cranston confirms his status as one of the greatest living actors in an intense critique of cold-hearted capitalism.
If you’re off to see All My Sons at the Wyndham’s Theatre in London, then you might want to think twice before having a pre-show drink. It runs for a bladder-challenging 130 minutes, with no interval and no readmittance. Creatively, though, this makes sense – upping the intensity of an already extremely intense play, penned in 1946 by master dramatist Arthur Miller and set in late-1940s post-war America.
The director for the current revival is the Belgian expressionist Ivo van Hove, who's collaborating with the minimalist scenery and lighting specialist Jan Versweyveld and costume designer An D’Huys. As you might expect, then, it’s decidedly bare, with no scenery beyond an apple tree that comes crashing down in the opening storm sequence (as an addition to Miller’s text), a doorway that doesn’t have an actual door, and a huge circle above it that’s sometimes a window and sometimes the sun (I think).
Music hums constantly, as it usually does in Van Hove’s work, while the costumes are vaguely period-adjacent, until one character turns up in a hoodie like an apparition from the future. It’s a flourish typical of this most divisive of directors, as is a bit at the end where someone falls to their death and reappears as a ghost. It’s meant to be symbolic, I’m guessing, but it doesn’t really work.
Van Hove is a brilliant director of actors, however, and when he lets his cast here just do their thing – which, thankfully, is for most of the runtime – the result is astounding.
Bryan Cranston confirms his status as one of the greatest living actors in the role of Joe Keller, whose factory provided defective munitions for the war effort, but who was exonerated after blaming his business partner.
For the last three years, Joe's eldest son Larry has been missing in action, but he has a strong bond with his other son, Chris. Or at least he does until Joe’s guilt is slowly, inexorably revealed and the family’s American dream begins to unravel in Miller’s critique of cold-hearted capitalism – which, it goes without saying, rings very true today.
Cranston disappears deep into the character, summoning sobs that seem to be coming from his very soul. He’s matched by Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who plays Joe’s wife Kate as a simmering cauldron of denial.
There’s not a single phoney note in their performances, nor in that of Paapa Essiedu as Chris, whose anger on discovering that the family fortune is built on secrets, lies and blood money explodes in a devastating third act. That drink you skipped before the show? You’ll need it afterwards.
All My Sons is at the Wyndham’s Theatre, London, until 7 March.
[Hero image credit: Jan Versweyveld]
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