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Director James Cady describes “All My Sons” as “a simple family story.” Arthur Miller’s award-winning play is as simple and domestic as Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” Both plays portray close-knit, if extended, families fraught by secrecy and betrayal, paralyzing loss and transferred affections. And both are set in claustrophobic households but against larger backdrops of upheaval and war. These great tragic qualities are currently on display at the Adobe Theater, where Cady directs an impressive cast in a production that is not for the faint of heart.
Philip J. Shortell (Joe Keller) offers a consistent and compelling portrait of a patriarch compromised by a changing world. Shortell’s performance is always charismatic and often larger than life, even as Joe falls from his self-made pedestal. Lorrie Oliver (Kate Keller) is poignant as the mother who cannot let go of the son gone missing in battle three years earlier. Oliver brings credibility and grace to her character’s transformation from frailty to fortitude. Matthew Van Wettering (Chris Keller) gives a solid performance of a young man’s idealism and its destruction. When told that Chris inspires others to be better than they are, we are inclined to believe it because Van Wettering plays the role as good-hearted and sincere. Chris’s love interest, Jessica Barkl (Ann Deever) is often endearing. But she never fully convinces as the ingénue who is the suitable prize for Van Wettering’s last good man. At the end of the play, the audience is moved by the actors’ powerful performances of disappointment, pain, and confusion.
Cady also casts Miller’s supporting roles effectively. David Bommarito (George Deever) is at his best when presenting nostalgia for the lost joys of childhood, which are charmingly staged by young Jackson Murrieta (Bert). Heather Lovick-Tolley (Sue Bayliss) steals her scenes with chilling performances of disillusioned pragmatism.
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If you go WHAT: “All My Sons” by Arthur Miller WHEN: 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays, February 22-March 17 WHERE: The Adobe Theater, 9813 Fourth NW HOW MUCH: $15 general admission, $13 students and seniors. For reservations call 898-9222 or go to www.adobetheater.org |
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“All My Sons,” although set in 1947, feels contemporary in its depiction of money and morality in a world at war. The timeliness of Miller’s play is highlighted by a lush stage design, which could be a backyard in current-day Albuquerque. Such analogies are frustrated, perhaps intentionally, by dated costume and hair design.
More importantly, “All My Sons” conveys a sense of timeless emotions. In the Adobe’s intimate space, the audience cannot escape the opening assault of light and sound, the actors’ raised voices, and the play’s disturbing violence. A theatrical shock and awe campaign, this production risks becoming too powerful. Cady, like Miller, seems intent on alerting us to our compromises and waking us from complacency.
<Standing_Hed>REVIEWIf you go WHAT: “All My Sons” by Arthur Miller WHEN: 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays, February 22-March 17 WHERE: The Adobe Theater, 9813 Fourth NW HOW MUCH: $15 general admission, $13 students and seniors. For reservations call 898-9222 or go to www.adobetheater.orgWeb HeadlineHeadline
A theatrical campaign of shock and awe
— This article appeared on page F5 of the Albuquerque Journal
