TS+All+My+Sons

Throughout its production history, the play //All My Sons// has typically been produced with a very realistic set, which merely serves as a back drop for the actions occurring on-stage, but in Paolino’s production of the play, the set is highly stylized and attempts to emphasize the examination of the characters in the play. The playing area was made of a dark hardwood and it was slightly slanted toward down stage right, and was supported by large metallic posts. Metal is seen again in the representation of the fallen apple tree, which was composed of metal tubing, and in a tea set that is used during the play, which was made out of chrome. These choices in materials gives the set a very sterile feeling, which sharply contrasts with what one would typically expect from the staging of //All My Sons//. The interesting set design also extends to the Keller’s home, which serves as the back drop for the play. Instead of portraying the entire back side of a house, the home is composed of windows that are hung from the ceiling and a door frame with no door. The lack of an actual house in the set serves to bring the forefront the issue of the Keller family and the many problems that lie below the aura of the perfect American family that they project on the surface. The sterility imparted to the set by the flooring and use of metal works well with the way the house was portrayed to further this idea that the Keller family is not as wholesome as they may seem. At the back of the stage, there is a line of chairs where the characters go and sit when they are not actually considered on-stage during the performance. From these chairs, the characters observe what is happening in front of them with an almost judging air about them. Again, we see that the choices that have been made with the set were very well thought out, because as we learn later into the play, all the neighbors knew that Joe Keller was responsible for the cracked engines getting shipped out and they silently judged him for it over the years, so the characters sitting in the chairs and observing the action gives that idea a literal manifestation. The lighting was done in cool tones and the overhead lighting was unchanging throughout the play. The backdrop of the set was lit in such a way that reflected the time of day that the scene took place during, which was an interesting touch, but overall, the lighting was not a major aspect in this production. By going against the longstanding conventions for set design with //All My Sons//, and Arthur Miller plays in general, Paoloni took a huge risk, but in my opinion it paid off because it brings the characters to the forefront and promotes a deeper examination of their motives and their relationship to the other characters, which greatly increased my enjoyment of the play as an audience member.  In the opening scenes of the play, I was concerned that the acting was going to be mediocre and would result in the production as a whole being less enjoyable, but as the performance moved toward the more dramatic scenes the actors showed that they were very talented. The scene that sticks out the most in my mind was the scene that served as the climax of the play where Chris confronts his parents about his father’s involvement in the defective airplane engines. All of the actors in this scene performed spectacularly and their performances really brought me in to the performance, which made the climactic scene where Joe commits suicide after being confronted by Chris about making up for his role in shipping out the cracked engines a very powerful scene. Throughout the play, the fact that the man who played Joe Keller was a veteran actor was very apparent, and I think that he did an excellent job of giving the character a unique personality that I feel fit well with what Arthur Miller intended when he wrote the character. The actor who played Chris did an excellent job of portraying the character, but I do not think that he added much of a unique interpretation of the role; instead, he simply brought to life the character as he was laid out in the script, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. In my opinion, the character of Kate Keller was performed very well; however, her accent did seem somewhat out of place considering the character she was playing and the setting of the play, but her excellent performance, especially in the high drama scenes mentioned earlier, far outweigh the slight out of place feeling that her accent gave. The rest of the actors performed serviceably. The actor who played George did an excellent job of making sure that his brief appearance in the play left a huge impression on the audience, because, in my opinion, George was one of the most important characters in the play, and I appreciated that the actor was able to do his role justice with the brief amount of time that he would be on stage.  The costumes in this production largely held true to the realism that has come to be the norm for productions of //All My Sons//, but special attention was paid to the colors of the outfits that the characters wore. The first thing that I noticed as the production began was that the Kellers were outfitted in muted colors that I feel worked well with the motif of the Kellers being a dysfunctional family that was also emphasized with the set for the production. The outfit that the character Frank Lubey was wearing also accurate portrayed his personality. He was wearing a bright Hawaiian shirt that was noticeably more vibrant than what the other characters were wearing, and his personality follows because he is much more carefree than the other characters. I also felt that there was a lot of thought put into the outfit that Ann Weaver wore during the first act. Her costume was a striking green dress, and I may be going out on a limb here but I think that the color green was specifically chosen due to its association with envy, greed, and desire, which one could definitely see being associated with the character. The other outfits worn by the characters are straightforward representations of the styles of the time period that the play is set in. The costumes used in the production are modestly done, with only slight hints towards the nature of the characters wearing them while keeping true to the era that the play takes place during.  With his production of //All My Sons// Paolino wanted to add his own interpretation to a longstanding, classic American play, and in doing so, he was very successful. The changes did not feel out of place and tacked on like the changes that were made for the production of //Life is a Dream// from earlier this season; instead, the changes that were made were subtle, and emphasized a particular interpretation of the play that the director must have favored. Many aspects of the traditional production of this play are still present, such as the traditional house, backyard, and costumes, but they are reimagined in a way that emphasizes the examination of the personalities of the characters rather than simply sitting back and watching the drama unfold as one might be inclined to do if the production were done with a more realistic set. In essence, Paolino takes away the expected, which this causes the audience to think, and in my opinion, great productions cause the audience to think about what is happening in front of them. The key reason why the changes to //All My Sons// succeeded, while the changes to //Life is a Dream// failed lies in that Paolino left the narrative of the play untouched and only made changes to the set, so the spirit of the play remains in tack, and we merely see it through a different tint. Paolino was very sure of what he wanted to do in this production, and because of this the production is very cohesive. All of the aspects of the production are carefully managed in order to do service both to Paolino’s interpretation and to Arthur Miller’s original script.