by Julian Wood
Worth: $18.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Bryan Cranston, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Paapa Essiedu, Hayley Squires, Tom Glynn-Carney
Intro:
[Bryan Cranston] ... anchors a bold and powerful production which is well worth catching.
We make our choices within the great systems we have erected, such as religion and capitalism. But systems cannot relieve us of the moral dilemmas that we are tragically condemned to. We often err as humans do, and both conscience and free will are part of the curse. Arthur Miller, the greatest American playwright of the twentieth century understood this only too well and his plays skilfully yoke the bigger questions to domestic lives. His socialistic leanings place working families at the heart of the broken American dream, as is the case in All My Sons.
In this early-middle period play, written just after WW2, Miller explores the tension between making individual profit and bearing social responsibility. The protagonist is businessman Joe Keller (Bryan Cranston). Joe did well out of the war, but his life has been blighted by the disappearance of one of his sons, Larry, who is presumed missing in action. Joe’s wife Kate (British actor Marianne Jean-Baptiste) has unravelled with the grief and the lack of an answer. In all this turmoil, Larry’s older brother Chris (Paapa Essiedu) is forced to become the moral compass for the family as more revelations come to light.
Director Ivo Van Hove has opted for a stark modern production which showcases Miller’s artful deceptive domestic dialogue. The stage is dominated by a giant tree in the back of the Kellers’ house. It has stood for decades but its sudden collapse has clear symbolic significance. Other than this visual centrepiece, the lighting and staging is kept to an unobtrusive minimum. One of the main talking points here is the casting of Bryan Cranston in the lead. Like many American mostly-screen actors before him, he clearly relishes the different challenges of the London stage. He seems totally at home. He shows his full range here and anchors a bold and powerful production which is well worth catching.
