All My Sons

Synopsis

Three years since the report of his disappearance in action, the Kellers are still waiting, hoping against hope for news of their son's return. Three years of waiting, and their younger son struggles to break the news to his mother and father that he is in love with the girl his brother left behind. Three lives are on hold, until they can finally accept that Laurie may never return. Events come to a head one evening, when Annie returns to her home town and forces the Keller family to confront their hidden past, their own culpability and the awful part they may have played in their son's demise. Powerful, passionate and frighteningly relevant, All My Sons, brought Arthur Miller his first major success as a playwright. This moving, tragic drama is a compelling tale of the ideological conflict between father and son, a merciless exposure of wartime profiteering and the American Dream.

Our Review:

Michael Coveney - 28 May 2010

Howard Davies’ National Theatre revival of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons ten years ago was pretty good, but he goes one better at the Apollo, where David Suchet and Zoe Wanamaker are the perfect pairing as Joe and Kate Keller, an all-American, late middle-aged couple living with the ghosts of the Second World War in their own back yard.

It was once said that “cover-up” is the great theme of American drama, and Miller’s 1947 play, which established his reputation and is now hailed by some – David Mamet, for instance – as his true masterpiece, contains the mother of all cover-ups. Joe was an ambitious manufacturer of household and industrial goods in the war – including a batch of faulty cylinder heads that caused the death of 21 pilots. Did he know about the fault before shipment?

One of the war dead is his own son but, of course, they are all his sons really. Joe’s business partner took the r...

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Latest User Review

sc - 16 September 2010:

I entirely agree with everything that has been written and said about this production and the incredible performances by Wanamaker and Suchet. But, a word of warning to anyone still planning to see it: don't sit in the upper circle, as you won't be able to see more than about half the action. It is outrageous that the Apollo can get away with charging £42.50 for a seat with a restricted view, which they don't tell you about when you book. Moan over - go and see the play if you can afford to....

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