WILL STONE is frustrated by a performance that chooses to garble the lyrics and drown the songs in reverb
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Worrisome intrusion on the American Dream
The fragile foundations of post-war US optimism are ever present in Arthur Miller's play, says TOM KING
PIC CAP Hoping against hope: Sally Field as Kate Keller
[Johan Persson]
RITA DI SANTO points out the social experience of exploitation and oppression that inform the popular winners at this year’s festival
PETER MASON is tickled by a new book and exhibition that mine the rotten anachronism of the monarchy for laughs
A Nazi zeppelin whodunnit, death amidst detoxification, a twistaholic’s delight, and noir fiction for criminals
STEVE JOHNSON salutes the mellifluous tones and clear-minded political message of a uniquely relevant Birmingham-born singer-songwriter
STEVE ANDREW enjoys an account of the many communities that flourished independently of and in resistance to the empires of old
TOM STONE urges you to catch the last dates of a New York singer/songwriter, never afraid to challenge her audiences musically or politically
All My Sons
Old Vic, London
SET at a time when Americans, sure of their place in the world after the defeat of fascism in WWII, were able to pursue their collective dream, Arthur Miller’s All My Sons begins in the sunny, vernal tranquility of a leafy Mid West suburb.
That sense of security is personified in the figure of Joe Keller (Bill Pullman), a successful businessman and archetypal family man. Outside a sunlit clapboard house bordered by a picket fence he reads the papers, jokes with neighbours and chats with his son Chris (Colin Morgan).
But gradually, through throwaway comments and casual conversation – testament to Miller’s skill as a playwright – we learn that he and his wife Kate (Sally Field) had another son, Jerry, who went missing in action during the second world war which had finished only two years previously.
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