metrospective

"All My Sons"

by Arthur Miller
directed by Bruce Sevy

The Denver Center's current production of Arthur Miller's "All My Sons" represents a bold step forward for the company even as it echoes some of the most poignant and resonant elements from last year's season.

The themes of an individual's struggle with social responsibility and self-deception that marked Miller's most well known dramas ("Death of a Salesman" and "The Crucible") find a stirring origin in "All My Sons," the playwright's first commercial success.

As a premiere for DCTC's 2005-06 season, the drama serves as a sly commentary on current events and as an effective tribute to a master of American drama.

The play focuses on the Keller family and its struggle to find stability after the ravages of World War II. As the manufacturer of plane cylinder heads during the war, Joe Keller made a hefty profit from the industry of tragedy. More significantly, as a child of the Depression, Joe sees his hard work and resulting profit as a boon and a blessing for his family. He has no qualms about gaining wealth from the destruction and desolation of the conflict.

His son, Chris Keller, is recently returned from combat and still haunted by the ghosts of war. Although he is well on his way to supplanting his father's managerial role in the family business, Chris is less concerned with profits. Instead, his focus is on helping his mother come to terms with the death of his brother, Larry, and wooing Ann Deever, Larry's former fianc‚e and daughter of Joe's former business partner, Steve Deever. Although Kate Keller is convinced that her son Larry is still alive, the disappearance of his plane during the war sends a clear message to both Chris and Joe.

The drama finds its stride when the shady details of Joe's wartime industry come to light and the clash between personal profit and social responsibility comes to the fore. Steve Deever, Joe's former business partner, is in prison for criminal neglect, having let faulty plane equipment get through the assembly line, faulty equipment that led to the failure of U.S. planes and the deaths of their pilots. When Joe's supposed innocence is thrown into question, each character's unique form of self-deception is brutally torn apart.

In a time when profits are being reaped from wartime profiteering throughout the globe, the questions and quandaries raised in "All My Sons" are supremely pertinent. The Denver Center's production infuses a 1940s plot setting with contemporary issues and problems in every detail of its design. What's more, the players treat their characters with such sensitivity and depth that every nuance of the plot finds full focus.

As Joe Keller, Mike Hartman exploits the full potential of a character whose personal devotions are narrow to a fault. Hartman portrays Joe as a victim of his culture, a hardened son of deprivation whose sole concern is his family. Joe's fault, the absence of a social conscience, stems from his situation. Still, it is impossible to fully sympathize with or loathe the character, and Hartman's performance imbues the character with the proper amount of moral complexity.

David Furr's performance as Chris presents a ballast to the self-interest of Joe's character. A freshman to the Denver Center, Furr shines as a disillusioned son coming to terms with his idealized father's crime and as a soldier suffering for his fallen comrades. Caught between the two is Kate Keller, given a tactile and immediate life by DCTC veteran Jeanne Paulsen. Torn between the loyalties of a mother and the duties of a socially conscious member of society, Paulsen's character drives the drama with her conflict.

Miller's play draws from themes both ancient and contemporary. Combining the realism of Henrik Ibsen and the psychological probing of the ancient Greek playwrights, "All My Sons" gives the traditional allegory an immediate appeal.

After last season's productions of both Ibsen's "A Doll's House" and Sophocles' "Oedipus Rex" at the Denver Center, "All My Sons" seems like a logical beginning to the new season. Like Miller's text, it draws on its precedents to create a fresh and unique fusion.

"All My Sons" will run at the Space Theatre until November 5.