All My Sons
Arthur Miller’s 1947 drama of evil-done and redemption by the end has all the hallmarks of an ancient Greek play: the entire action of the play takes place within a 24-hour cycle; the flawed protagonist is a tragic figure who dies for his sins; it explores father-son conflicts; it has a messenger who propels the action.
Miller wrote his family tragedy two years before his masterpiece, DEATH OF A SALESMAN. But both plays contain father-son strife; both mothers try to protect their husbands’ reputations; the death of the flawed main character ends the conflicts encapsulated in the play.
The ever-resourceful producer, Joseph Stern, has taken what is perhaps an overly-familiar trope and tried to give it new meaning in our racially convoluted era. That it doesn’t completely work does not mean we can’t take away his central idea: that America in 2011 has entered a “post-racial” time and that if mix-marriages work today, in integrated neighborhoods, perhaps we can view the past through that particular prism.
But Miller’s play was written over six decades ago, when Protestants and Catholics still had problems with each other; when racial segregation was the law of most of the then 48-states; that women did not have the same freedoms they enjoy today. So, the notion of a mixed-race marriage between Joe Keller (Alex Morris, an African-American actor) and Kate Keller (Anne Gee Byrd, a Caucasian-American), with their mixed-race son, Chris (A.K. Murtadha) to marry, if he can, the Korean-American neighbor, Ann Deever (Linda Park), brother to George (James Hiroyuki Liao, Japanese-American), while living in a house nestled between a white couple (Anita Barone and Taylor Nichols) on one side and Latinos Frank and Lydia Lubey (Armand Vasquez and Maritxell Carrero) on the other.
You see the problem: we can be as progressive as hell but know that it wasn’t that way just after World War II was supposed to suppress bigotry and make for a color-blind America. It hadn’t happened yet.
So the central problem of Joe, who illegally shipped broken engines to the Army Air Force, causing 21 pilots to die in crashes, unethically putting the blame on Ann’s father, gets somewhat lost in the racially-neutral ideal.
Now, the actors are up to the task of just playing the context, although the relationship between Joe and Kate isn’t solid enough yet. But Morris’ bluster (reminiscent of SALESMAN’S Willy Loman) makes him an easy mark for Chris’ fury and George Deever’s contempt. Byrd, a remarkable actor in any role she takes on, does bring Kate’s anguish to the fore. Park gets to play the cheeriness as well as the incredible sadness of life gone slipping by. Carrero pulls off the humor of the play, while making her ditsy wife terribly aware of the wrongness of her marriage. Barone gets her character’s flint-sharp underside and Nichols is properly hen-pecked.
It’s what we might label a noble experiment that doesn’t jell, but on John Iacovelli’s stylistic set, under Brian Gale’s evocative lighting design, Cameron Watson’s direction rings true. These are real people caught up in extraordinary circumstances and the honesty that comes through makes this solid theatre, in spite of misplaced liberal ideals.
At the Matrix Theatre, 7657 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90046 through December 18th. Tickets: 323.960.7773 or www.matrixtheatre.com.