Apollo, London
25th September, 2010
After seeing Leicester’s Curve’s production in 2009, I
thought more and more about how much I enjoyed Arthur Miller’s American
classic, first performed in 1947. I bought the script and found the language,
particularly in the final act, powerful and emotive and when finding out that
Howard Davies would be reviving his acclaimed production from the National in
2000, I really looked forward to seeing it.
It took 10 years for Davies to bring his production to the
West End, which makes me wonder why it took so long. David Suchet took the role
of Joe Keller, the self-made businessman who was falsely exonerated for
shipping off faulty airplane parts in WWII, and Zoe Wanamaker played his wife Kate who still holds out false hope
for their son Larry to return home from the war. Their performances were
both excellent. I initially doubted whether Suchet would fit the role of Keller
but only because I hadn’t seen him in many other things apart from Poirot. However, he roamed around his
garden like a lion in his den, proclaiming how there’s nothing bigger than the
values of family and the home. He is the typical tragic hero – the man who
embodies what the American Dream endorsed, without realising that there is
something bigger than the family in the world. When he does realise it, it is
far too late, and he cannot bear to live any more.
Chris, his son played by Stephen Campbell Moore, does realise
this and is easily the moralist of the piece, some critics even arguing that he
is most near to Miller himself - after all they were the same age at the time of Miller writing it. But he’s not always likeable. Indeed, I found
myself favouring Joe’s ideals by the end. The benefits of Capitalism
are well endorsed by Miller but ultimately are bound to fail, but just as Joe
does not realise this, I also began to favour him. ‘A man can’t be a Jesus
in this world’ he exclaims to Chris in the brilliantly dramatic third act, thus
leaving me agreeing with him and the lifestyle that he promotes, even though it
is not realistically ever able to work. The audience never seeing anyone as a
villain comes from the genius of Miller’s writing. The slow – perhaps mundane
opening act – featuring the characters talking of the weather and what’s in the
paper allows for you to get to know them so well that you begin to feel to know
them better than your own neighbours by the end, thus making the impact of the
end much sadder and more dramatic.
Zoe Wanamaker’s performance was also brilliant. Kate’s
moments of chirpiness are held up by the hope that she holds for Larry to
return, without which she would be in a constant state of sadness. Some critics
have observed that moments of the play are a little contrived such as the use
of a letter to reveal what’s happened to Larry. However, when Kate read it,
Wanamaker let out a series of moans which were brilliantly theatrical – it was
one of those moments where your love of theatre and acting was affirmed as she
truly conveyed Kate’s emotion, lost in the character.
The apex of the dialogue in Act Three was filmed as part of a
trailer for the show but seeing it live, where the performances were slightly
heightened to fill the Apollo, Suchet and Wanamaker sent shivers down the
spine. ‘I’m his father and he’s my son, and if there’s something bigger than
that I’ll put a bullet in my head’ are the potent words spat by Keller,
completely consumed by his deluded view of the world. And although Kate cries
back to Joe that Chris doesn’t see the world like that, her silence also spoke
volumes of the pain and guilt that she’s suffering.
William Dudley’s set of the back yard and veranda of a
four-square house (the epitome of the American Dream) is enclosed by trees and
branches overhead to nicely reflect the secluded world of the Kellers from the
rest of society. As the gunshot sounds from inside the house, I’m sure the
house literally jumped with all its windows momentarily ablaze with light,
leaving a still Wanamaker looking up to the Gods of the auditorium to
desperately cry out her final lines.
Overall, this was a marvellous production with a superb cast
and it will remain one of my most memorable and enjoyable times in a theatre.
All My Sons played at the Apollo Theatre until 2nd
October, 2010. If you missed the show, it was recorded by Digital Theatre and
is now available for download.
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