All My Sons reborn at WAAPA
THEATRE
All My Sons
By Arthur Miller
Third-year acting WAAPA
4 stars
Roundhouse Theatre
Review: Stephen Bevis
The Roundhouse at WAAPA has to be one of the best venues to watch theatre in Perth. Its ringside-seat intimacy enhances the visceral power of a performance and leaves its players with nowhere to hide.
It’s a pleasure to sit back and watch a talented and fearless young cast throw their all into one of the great plays of the modern canon — and to think of stars of the future and the prospect of saying one day: “I saw them when they were at WAAPA.”
All My Sons, Arthur Miller’s intergenerational gyre of post-war profit and loss, delusion and the abrogation of community responsibility in pursuit of the American dream, is the perfect dramatic pugilism for this setting.
Premiering in 1947, the play focuses on factory boss Joe Keller (Andrew Creer), his wife Kate Keller (Brittany Morel) and their returned World War II serviceman son Chris (Bevan Pfeiffer), who wants to marry Annie Deever (Stephanie Panozzo), the sweetheart of their other son lost at war.
To complicate matters, Kate refuses to accept her son is dead and Joe hides a terrible secret about Annie’s father, his former business partner who was jailed for shipping out faulty aircraft parts which caused the death of 21 pilots.
When Annie’s lawyer brother George (Hoa Xuande) turns up to sheet home ultimate blame to Joe, the Kellers face the consequences of war profiteering, betrayal and of idealism corroded by ruthless exigencies.
This production, under director Tom Healey, drips with contemporary relevance.
Cameron Routley’s lighting of the sundered family tree is stark and affecting. The set and costume design, by Sallyanne Facer and Madeleine Watt, balances 1940s style with the present day to connect the lessons of Miller’s play with our own fearful and insular times.
The young cast play across the generations with nuanced gesture and tone of voice, without having to “grey-up” for the older roles.
Creer stacks up well as the big man Joe ultimately confronted by his own smallness and the realisation that his responsibilities extend beyond the family’s front gate to the world outside.
Morel is a compelling Kate, obsessive, distant and tic-ridden in her denial of the truth on two fronts. Pfeiffer is unerring in tracing Chris’ arc from optimistic crusader to a man crushed by the collapse of everything he believes in. Hoa, a delight last year as Jeffrey in Barking Gecko’s Jasper Jones, brings an impressive depth to George, who tears down the Keller’s facade in the comfort of their own backyard.
With a cast of 10, this play showcases just over half the final-year class of 2015. I look forward to seeing the others in upcoming productions of The Playboy of the Western World, The Mars Project and Macbeth.
All My Sons ends on Thursday.
