A monster, then & now
Miller’s ‘All My Sons’ speaks to our times
Joe Keller, the tragic antihero of Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons” and a man accused of an unethical wartime business decision, generally is played as a folksy sort of fella. Like most people with a hidden past, this small-town Ohioan in 1947 has figured out how to smile his way through scandal and keep the truth from his kids. He hides his secret with a genial “how you doin’?”
That’s not the way Tracy Letts plays him. His Joe Keller is a monster, barely concealing what is rotten within.
“You’re a boy,” he screams at his pained son Chris, knocking actor Benjamin Walker back on his feet. “I’m in business! A man is in business!”
In every other “All My Sons” I’ve seen — and I’ve seen plenty — that line is a kind of plea, a desperate attempt by someone confronted with his moral failings to blame all-American capitalism. In Jack O’Brien’s revival at the American Airlines Theatre of this wellmade play set in a postwar Ohio backyard, it’s more of a howl of rage. In this production, Joe is not a fundamentally good man who has made the kind of terrible mistake that makes us think, “There but for the grace of God go I.”
Oh no. With Letts smoldering
away, the whole decency thing is a sham — an affectation, a role Joe has learned how to play, not unlike how Hannibal Lecter learned to charm an FBI agent.
And Annette Bening is not far behind: She elicits relatively little sympathy as Kate. The production even denies the movie star the customary entrance applause — initially, she makes a halting half entrance, putzing around on the porch, a psychological mess who only partly wants to support her husband. When the truth finally is out, Bening shows you someone in relief, a profoundly intelligent woman who no longer has to drive herself psychotic in service of the lousy man she married.
So there you have it — wily old O’Brien has directed an “All My Sons” for a moment when we’re deeply uneasy about the all-American brand of capitalism, and certainly not inclined to view the needs of business as any avenue toward absolution. Time’s up, Joe Keller.
In so doing, O’Brien does no violence to the play: “All My Sons” is a masterpiece of 20th century American drama and, like other great plays, it always seems to fit the current moment.
Go and see it now and you’ll likely find yourself thinking about the issues surrounding Boeing and the 737 MAX, another scenario where the competitive demands of business potentially led to shortcuts in safety. Or so a whole slew of lawyers will allege.
You’ll also think about the current debate surrounding how we deal with past sinners of all stripes, and the moral rectitude of holding them accountable for their crimes. Should fictional Joe Keller have been treated more kindly than, say, Bernie Madoff? This is the richness of Miller’s oft-revived play: He had his finger on the paradoxes of capitalism, the way we Americans tie ourselves in knots trying to navigate the contradictory demands of a free market and ethical behavior.
Letts’ performance likely will strike some as odd or disconnected — I find it perfectly in tune with the moment, and there is much to like about Bening’s work, too. Kate Keller is a tricky part — she can come off as merely an enabler or a kook. Bening comes up with something much richer, as does Walker, who is quite moving and, well, sad. It will take another generation or two to fix things, you think.
The milieu of secondary characters (Francesca Carpanini as Anne and Hampton Fluker as George) does not come with the same counterintuitive energy as the principals, although you feel the pulse of their hesitance and doubt. And the design, by Douglas W. Schmidt, doesn’t take many risks, preferring the usual nostalgic gauze.
Had Letts been given some raging players to match his own buried ferocity, we’d likely have seen even more of his teeth. Molars of America’s tawdry past!