Award-winning actors Annette Bening and Tracy Letts return to Broadway in the play that launched Arthur Miller as the moral voice of the American Theater. In the aftermath of WWII, the Keller family struggles to stay intact and to fight for their future when a long-hidden secret threatens to emerge - forcing them to reckon with greed, denial, repentance, and post-war disenchantment across generations.
The stormy climax of All My Sons still packs a wallop, but the road to it is long, painfully dated, and-though we don't like to admit to basic failings in our canonized playwrights-marked by some truly frustrating logical potholes. And in director Jack O'Brien's production, the play's glaring issues go unexamined, swathed in a suburban summertime scenic design by Douglas W. Schmidt that's so artificially verdant it feels cloying. Of course, the point of the play is that unpleasant things are going to go down in this Norman Rockwell-esque backyard, but there are also unpleasant things going on in the fabric of Miller's play, and these are being summarily avoided-even added to-as the production reverentially, almost complacently, presents All My Sons as an unquestioned masterpiece.
O'Brien's production includes actors of color in important roles. Hampton Fluker plays George and Chinasa Ogbuagu plays Sue Bayliss, a neighbor with sharp opinions on the Keller family's self-deceiving ways. The casting, neither colorblind nor thematic, is part of a theatrical tradition that has become more or less standard. If the company seems unsettled, the issue isn't race but style. O'Brien's ensemble mixes realism with contemporary classicism in a catch-as-catch-can way. It's the acting equivalent of a mixed salad.
1947 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
1974 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
1987 | Broadway |
Broadway Revival Broadway |
1997 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
2008 | Broadway |
Broadway Revival Broadway |
2010 | West End |
London Revival West End |
2019 | West End |
London Revival at Old Vic Theatre West End |
2019 | Broadway |
Roundabout Theatre Company Broadway Revival Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2019 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play | Hampton Fluker |
2019 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Annette Bening |
2019 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Tracy Letts |
2019 | Drama League Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Broadway or Off-Broadway Play | All My Sons |
2019 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Director of a Play | Jack O'Brien |
2019 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Feature Actor in a Play | Benjamin Walker |
2019 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Projection Design | Jeff Sugg |
2019 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Play | All My Sons |
2019 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Sound Design | John Gromada |
2019 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play | Benjamin Walker |
2019 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play | Annette Bening |
2019 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | All My Sons |
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