Mountain View native returns home to act Mountain View native returns home to act (February 27, 2004)

Spindt has role in 'All My Sons'

By Julie O'Shea

"All My Sons" -- a harrowing family drama about a father's devastating wartime secret -- is one of those rare shows that can get under your skin and make you shiver.

Carla Spindt will even go as far as to call Arthur Miller's 1947 epic one of the best scripts ever written.

"This is the most carefully crafted plays I have ever worked on," said Spindt, who returns to her hometown area to take on the role of Kate, the dedicated mother and wife in "All My Sons," which TheatreWorks will open at the Lucie Stern Theatre in Palo Alto on March 6. Previews begin March 3.

"Having worked on this play makes me want to read (Miller's) other plays because I think I missed something," Spindt said. "He makes us think of the way we function in this world.

"I think its one of those plays, like Shakespeare, that any generation can relate to. It's an American play."

The story opens on a late summer day, two years after the end of World War II. The past is impossible to escape for the Keller family, left to cope with the mysterious disappearance of eldest son Larry, reported missing and presumed dead after his plane crashed during a combat mission three and a half years earlier.

More intriguing is the troubling, deep secret Joe Keller, an airplane parts manufacturer and the Keller patriarch, has kept locked away for years -- a secret so gut-wrenching, it threatens the very core of his existence: his family.

The premise is based on an old case Miller read about a wartime tank manufacturer who knowingly shipped out defective parts, which resulted in the deaths of dozen of American soldiers.

"I think he was ahead of his time," Spindt says of Miller during a pre-rehearsal interview last week. "We get emotionally involved. ... He makes us think of the way we are functioning in this world."

But besides the playwright, Spindt's other favorite subject is her co-stars.

"I love the young people in this show -- you have to write that," Spindt said, excitedly sitting up in her chair on the makeshift stage at TheatreWorks' rehearsal space in Mountain View.

And then there is Will Marchetti, a TheatreWorks veteran who will be playing Spindt's husband, Joe. The two actors have already worked together numerous times before getting cast in their latest production on the Peninsula.

"Will Marchetti -- we already have a relationship," Spindt said with a laugh, explaining how she's played both his wife and lover onstage.

Despite having grown up in Mountain View, Spindt said "All My Sons" is her first show with TheatreWorks.

"I've wanted to work here for a long time," she said.

Smiling, Spindt recalled how she'd once auditioned for a TheatreWorks play in the Crittenden Middle School gym -- "the first place I ever slow-danced."

Now the mother of 12-year-old twin girls, Spindt lives in Suisun City near Fairfield, where she works as a conservatory director at Solano Community College in the mornings. She drives an hour and a half south to attend rehearsals in Mountain View.

But she says the commute is worth it.

"I am really loving working on this play. I feel it's going to be good for us," Spindt said. "When I tell my friends that I'm in ("All My Sons"), every one of them says 'Oh, I love that play!'"

E-mail Julie O'Shea at joshea@mv-voice.com

Information

What: TheatreWorks presents "All My Sons" by Arthur Miller

Where: Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto

When: Previews March 3, 4 and 5 at 8 p.m. Open March 6 at 8 p.m. March 9 and 16 at 7:30 p.m.; Wednesdays through Fridays at 8 p.m. Saturdays at 8 p.m. and 2 p.m. on March 13 and 20; Sundays at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. on March 7 and 14. Closes March 28.

Cost: $20-$48

Call: 903-6000 or visit theatreworks.org

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