BFAllMySons

I saw “All My Sons” in the main theater in the Fine Arts Building. The overall experience was different from past performances I’ve seen because of this change in setting. There were more rows of seats since the room was two to three times the size of the cellar theater where the other two performance I have seen were held, and the stage was bigger and in this instance was a raked stage, which tilts down toward the audience creating a more up close and personal view of the scenes. You get the feeling that you are right in the middle of what is going on on stage since the stage juts into the audience more than it usually would. The set consisted of the outer frames of windows, a door, and a roof with just the crown molding, which hung from the ceiling, to give the appearance of a house without having to create an entire house. The house was raised and had a few steps to get up to it, as if to separate it from the rest of the stage, which was meant to be a front yard. The floors are wooden and the house, meaning the floating windows and door, is painted a gray color. In the yard there was a bench, a fallen tree made up of metal tube-like extensions, and a table with tableware on it and chairs around it. The background consists of a white screen, which has colored light, mostly blues and purples projected onto it, the color changing with the mood of the scene. There are various props already on stage including a newspaper and a few other small items.

I really liked the choice of costumes. They seemed to be from the 1940s. I particularly liked the dresses the women wore since they are more obvious as period clothing. The men wore mostly suits aside from Frank who sported a Hawaiian shirt, a hat, high waist kakis, and a timelessly tacky socks and sandals combination. The young boy, Bert, wore an outfit that could be worn today without looking strange, aside from the cuffed jeans. I particularly liked Ann’s dresses. They were very pretty and had a modest 1940s feel to them.

The play opens to the sounds of a radio broadcast, which plays various 1940s ads. It makes me feel like they’re listening for news on the radio. The broadcasts play when we come back from the intermission as well as at the start of the play. The radio and the news were important during this time period. Kate is always looking for reasons for hope for her last son Larry whom she still believes to be alive, and finds stories in the news of soldiers who were missing for longer than Larry who found their way home. There is also a piano that only plays in the background when Kate has sentimental moments. It ads to the mood and highlights the sentimentality of what Kate is talking about. At the end of the play, when Joe shoots himself off stage, the sound of the gunshot heard was extremely loud and made most everyone in the audience jump at the sound. I assume the made it so loud for dramatic effect.

I liked how they set up the staging of the actors and actresses, where they sit in assigned chairs off stage and observe the scenes that are happening on the front of the stage, giving the idea that everything that happens is a public spectacle. The actors aren’t even sitting stiffly on stage; they are lounging, watching scenes unravel thoughtfully until they are either needed on stage or off stage. I liked how there was a sense of realism when it came to props. They poured actual drinks and lit an actual match to light a pipe; I could smell the smoke from the match from my seat. It was a contrast from the set, which had a more metaphorical feel to it. I felt like the set spoke a lot about the people in the play as well. The house belonged to Joe and Kate and was essentially see through, just like Joe and Kate. They were fake people and everyone in the neighborhood could see it but played along.

During the play, though the overall tone was largely serious, there was quite a bit of comic relief mostly from Joe, which makes me think he was making jokes all of the time to hide the guilt of sending out the defective airplane parts. I was frustrated by Kate and Joe’s behavior. The dishonesty and the selfishness were infuriating. Joe essentially sold out a friend and killed innocent American soldiers carrying out their civic duty to avoid jail time and to make a profit holding onto his business. The fact that everyone in the neighborhood knew he had done it shows just how public of a spectacle their lives were to each other.

The symbolism of Joe’s walk off stage when he went to shoot himself was moving. He seemed to be walking into a light, symbolic of his death. The gut wrenching reaction of George to discovering his father’s death was very powerful. His mother was once again there to hold up the fort and be strong for George. I felt like Kate saw her job as preserving her family. To think about everything she had to lose made is hard to protest the terrible thing she did. She backed her lying husband so he wouldn’t go to jail, she refused to believe her son Larry was dead, and she brainwashed her son into believing his father was innocent so she would not lose him too. She was holding on to her family and by the end of the play she had no husband, she was forced to come to terms with the death of her son since there was indisputable proof he was dead at that point, and the only son she had left, and she is burdened with the knowledge that her husband had caused the apparent suicide of her son whom she had mourned over and not accepted to be dead for three years.

George experienced a roller coaster of emotions throughout the play. The actor who played him did an excellent job of portraying how George felt. He went through bouts of anger at the accusation that his father was a murderer, then he was furious after finding out he had indeed been deceived and he began to question everything he had ever known, feeling like he was part of why his brother died since his father had shipped those defective parts for him, and finally he was distraught by his father’s suicide, feeling like he had driven him to it. All of these feelings were written all over the actor’s face during the play. It was definitely a brilliant performance.

The play really spotlighted the societal pressures of the time and the psychological need to achieve the American Dream that is so often alluded to during this time period. Joe rationalized his decision to send off the parts with the idea that he needed to make a better future for his son, save the business, and support his family, no matter the cost. The play also reminded me of Arthur Miller’s //Death of a Salesman// with the reoccurring theme of a father’s plight in failing to reach the American Dream for his family and the consequences that come with it.