” This is a heavy play and director Hove doesn’t spare us … but you are watching excellent actors at play.“
Con Nats
3.5 Cylinders
National Theatre have brought back another old favourite in Arthur Miller’s All My Sons with a stellar cast and a multi racial angle.
Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad) plays Joe Keller, the affable industrialist who made cylinder heads during the war and escaped prison after a bad batch led to 21 dead US pilots. Marriane Jean-Baptiste (Secrets and Lies) plays Kate, the mother still waiting for her MIA son, Larry, to come back home.
Paapa Essiedu (I May Destroy You) plays Chris, the idealistic son and the very talented Hayley Squires (I, Daniel Blake) is Annie, Larry’s old girlfriend.
Director Ivo Van Hove (A View from the Bridge) has taken a dark, brooding view of this play. The set is simple. A large fallen tree in front of a mauve wall and a large circle that is a window. The lighting is dark. Only Joe provides any light with his humour. He uses a foreboding soundtrack for impact.
As the matriarchal mother, Jean-Baptiste brings a feisty Jamaican mother aspect to Kate. When she declares that believing Larry was dead would mean believing Joe killed him, you understand she truly understands the contradiction of her position. She knows what she is avoiding, and needs to protect it with anger. You can contrast this with the meek, naivety which Sally Fields brought in the 2019 production.
Cranston is excellent as Joe. He draws out what comedy there is and uses confidence instead of anger to justify his actions and emotions. He feels real. His scenes with Jean-Baptiste have great chemistry and his final scenes are powerful. You do his feel his guilt.
Essiedu starts weakly as Chris. At first he’s almost like a nervous gay boy around Annie but grows into his role. Squires is very good but doesn’t have much to play off. And Tom Glynn-Carney as George makes a good little appearance, although his costume choices are debatable.
This is a heavy play and director Hove doesn’t spare us. He knows he has an emotional story and a talented cast so he milks every possible moment from them. Comic characters are subdued. Dramatic scenes are unleashed with fury. The soundtrack telegraphs its punches.
The actors take their moments, but they should have been pared back. It’s the quantity of high-power scenes and people yelling at each other that is wearing, not the quality. And at 2 hours 25 minutes without an intermission, he asks a lot from the audience.
But you are watching excellent actors at play. I wished the director used more gear changes to lessen, then heighten, the impact. Sometimes less is more.
3.5 Cylinders
Con Nats, On The Screen
