All My Sons

A week ago, I drove to Liverpool (2 hours, give or take, and luckily there were no traffic problems) to see the above-named Arthur Miller play. Now…I know nothing of Arthur Miller. The only one of his plays I had heard of was Death of a Salesman, and it must be admitted that the first thing my mind jumps to upon mention of that one is Buffy. So the reason for this excursion? Easy. There is a central cast of 4 – father, mother, son and love interest – and in this production, the son was played by Alexis Denisof.

That is perfectly sufficient reason for spending a grand total of about £40 on ticket and journey.

So, the play itself. When I finally got round to booking a ticket (the day before), the only ones left were in the Gallery, so I was pretty high up above the stage. It was mostly okay except we couldn’t quite see all of the set to properly appreciate it, and there was one little section of stage right at the front which I couldn’t see. But the main problems were the usual tall guy with big head sat in front of me. Sigh. Wasn’t too bad though. Oh there was also someone sat somewhere off behind me who kept moaning. Seriously. It was a little distracting.

The story…is relatively straightforward. There was another son in the family. Both sons went away to war (honestly, I never worked out which war. WWII or Vietnam…hang on, I could google this. Ah, WWII. Okay) – and the younger son, Larry, went MIA over 2 years before the play starts. Everyone knows he must surely be dead, except their mother who refuses to accept it. Elder son Chris came back from the war, works for his dad, seems good and normal. But of course isn’t really. Hurrah! Basically it turns out that their father, whose company manufactured parts for planes during the war, knowingly shipped out faulty engine components, which caused 21 planes to crash – but then got away with it by blaming it all on his partner (Chris’ love interest’s father, always good to keep things complicated). His wife knew about it but kept the secret, and it turns out that Larry heard the news and committed suicide because he couldn’t bear knowing his father was responsible for such a thing. Basically the whole play deals with this secret coming out and what it does to Chris, who, even before this, is still traumatised by the war and how the real world doesn’t measure up to the heroism he saw in battle.

So – Alexis Denisof playing a tortured idealist? Hurray.

He was good. A little too inclined to do that slightly-bent-legs-walking thing which kind of kills drama (think the rogue demon hunter with his chafing pants), but only when he was being the everything’s-alright version of his character. So I forgive that. He convinced me as someone betrayed by his father and the world in everything he believed in.

The rest of the cast were also damn good – father and mother in particular were excellent. The love interest…meh. She was playing a 1940s woman so I guess didn’t have a huge amount of scope anyway, but tended to just flit around and offer grape juice. Easily the best moment with her was when she and Chris kissed. Chris had his hands at his side like he didn’t quite know what to do with them, and whoever it was on whedonesque who said that they had an irrepressible brain flash to Wes/Cordy was spot on. But it was okay because it was meant to be funny and so I could hide my geeky giggles under cover of other people’s normal ones.

The interesting thing for me was my whole reaction to the theatrical medium. I haven’t been to a play for a while...not a proper, serious one anyway – and it actually kind of worried me how much trouble I was having with it at times. Things kept feeling melodramatic, or rushed, or just unlikely. And I don’t think it was the play’s fault. I think it was the fault of tv. I am getting so used to the idea of arcing stories, of character development that spreads across many, many hours, that watching Chris’ breakdown from mostly-okay guy to sobbing-in-his-mother’s-lap guy just seemed unrealistically fast. I felt there was too much skipped, too many lines that were unnecessarily ott. But they weren’t, really…no more than they are in all plays. So...sigh. Annoying, that, but I’m not sure what I can do about it.

The theme of the whole play? I think, overall, the questions of family versus society; money versus morality; implicit trust in parents versus seeing them as real, flawed people.

All subjects I seem to remember discussing in emails at one time or another. Hmm.

They got huge applause when they finished. And they deserved it. It was well worth the driving and the getting lost in Liverpool and the getting home at midnight (whereupon to be landed with a text adventure to test).

To end with – a quote. Which in no way made me think of Wesley and apologies that never happened. Oh no.

Chris: Larry didn’t kill himself to make you and dad sorry!
Kate: What else can we be?
Chris: You can be better.