Miller's wartime play is right for today Miller's wartime play is right for today (March 12, 2004)

Theatreworks' stages somber 'All My Sons'

By Julie O'Shea

Watching an Arthur Miller play is like hanging out with an old buddy -- the setting is charmingly familiar, yet the conversation is sometimes too painfully honest.

The famed playwright's poignant backyard drama, "All My Sons," which TheatreWorks opened at the Lucie Stern Theatre in Palo Alto last weekend, upholds this Miller tradition to a tee. It perhaps resonates even more than usual with today's audience given that it deals with the consequences of a deadly wartime secret.

Although the action is peppered with many signature laugh-out-loud Miller moments, the play, overall, is emotionally taxing from its thunderous first moments to its tragic climax. And when it's all said and done, you're left to wonder: Did it really have to end that way? But of course, this is Arthur Miller: king of the American tragedy.

Miller lifted the idea for "All My Sons," a prelude to his success with "Death of a Salesman," from an old story involving a tank manufacturer who knowingly shipped out defective parts during World War I, which resulted in the unnecessary deaths of American soldiers.

Miller replaced the role of the tank manufacturer with that of an airplane parts maker and opened his story on a Midwestern summer day, two years after the end of World War II. At first glance, it appears as though we've stumbled upon another charming family comedy with a proud father enjoying the company of his son and his next-door neighbors. But within minutes, we learn the Keller family's happy demeanor is shrouded by the mysterious disappearance of eldest son Larry, whose plane crashed during a combat mission nearly four years earlier.

Old family secrets come to a boil when Chris Keller (Jeffrey Cannata) announces he plans to wed Ann (Cassie Beck), his dead brother's girl. This doesn't sit well with Kate (Carla Spindt), the overprotective family matriarch who is convinced that her oldest boy is still going to come home from the war.

Things intensify when Ann's brother George (Geno Carvalho), seething with rage, shows up at the Keller compound and threatens to expose the long-guarded secret of father Joe's wartime greed.

As it turns out, Joe (Will Marchetti) is not as straitlaced as he comes across. Shortly before his son went "missing," Joe knowingly sent out faulty airplane parts, causing the deaths of 21 American pilots. But instead of taking the blame, Joe points the finger at another man -- the father of Ann and George -- now wallowing in a prison cell.

Character development is so important in a show like this. And every line is so deeply significant to the meaning of the play that to deliver it even slightly off-key would be an injustice. And while the TheatreWorks production, on the whole, is quite profound, some actors tend to overdramatize their lines, taking away from the richness of Miller's words.

Furthermore, scenic designer Andrea Bechert's fragmented yellow house seems rather cartoonish for such a serious show, serving more as a distraction than as a complement.

But director Kent Nicholson and his 10-member cast manage to give us many stirring moments. Especially moving is Cannata as handsome Chris Keller. Cannata's pain seems real, and his character's horror-stricken tirade is as pertinent today as it was in 1947, when the show first opened.

"Once and for all, you must know that there's a universe of people outside," Chris Keller yells to his mother, "and you're responsible to it."

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: March 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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