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.
Contrasting with video designer Jeff Sugg's horrific clips of doomed airplanes plummeting to the ground, O'Brien's production is decidedly low-key. Letts' Joe is an unremarkable everyman, happy to retire comfortably. Bening's Kate, living in an era when wives don't have much choice in the matter, determinedly stands by her husband's claims of innocence, knowing that her personal future is dependent on his. Walker's Chris, whose wartime experiences may have instilled a greater empathy for others, is an earnest voice of emerging ideals.
A muddled casting controversy and the resignation of a prominent director no doubt diverted some early public and press attention from the Roundabout Theatre Company's revival of Arthur Miller's All My Sons, but this Broadwayproduction, opening tonight, can handle whatever comes its way. When all's said and done, Jack O'Brien's knock-you-from-behind staging is as powerful and sturdy as Miller's post-war classic itself. And in a shattering performance that adds yet another layer to her quietly remarkable career, Annette Bening finds grace notes in the role of the grieving Gold Star mother that brings the character to vivid, brutalized life.
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