Every so often a news story breaks that reminds you of All My Sons. Typically, it’ll involve a faulty part that has caused the deaths of a company’s customers. A corner has been cut, a saving has been made and the consequences overlooked until the PR fallout gets too embarrassing.
In Arthur Miller’s play, the stakes are raised because the shortcut in question arouses not only our sense of injustice but also our spirit of patriotism. If a man is prepared to ship cracked cylinder heads for use in American fighter planes during the war, he is both an indictment of capitalist greed and a betrayer of the nation.
In short, he is antisocial and, although he may be as genial a family man as Joe Keller, he has violated the unspoken code that keeps us bonded together.
It’d be nice to say director Michael Emans brought these resonances alive, but sadly his Rapture theatre production is too flat and prosaic for that. I say this with a note of caution. On press night, not only was the lead role played by David Tarkenter, standing in with admirable confidence for an unwell Paul Shelley, but also poor Trudie Goodwin, playing the psychologically tortured Kate Keller, fainted in the middle of the second act, and valiantly carried on after a 10-minute break.
It’s reasonable to assume this was not a company on peak form, but it’s hard to imagine such an old-fashioned production igniting much passion in any circumstance. Dwarfed by Neil Murray’s four-square set, all bleached weatherboards and quaint garden furniture, the actors struggle to hold our attention even in some of the greatest speeches of 20th-century drama. The director, meanwhile, takes the path of least resistance, never surprising, never illuminating.
Hazards of live theatre aside, it’s an uninspired staging of what should be an urgent play for today.
At Theatre Royal, Glasgow, until 5 September. Box office: 0844-871 7627. Then touring.
