SHANNON URTNOWSKI
Staff Writer
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Anela Holck/Ass. Photo Editor
Famed playwright Arthur Miller’s first major drama, “All My Sons,” is coming to Pepperdine’s Helen E. Lindhurst Theatre next week.
“All My Sons” premiered in 1947 at Broadway’s Coronet Theatre under the direction of Elia Kazan. It ran for 328 performances and won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for best play of the season.
“All My Sons” opened just after the end of World War II and was considered very controversial for the time. In the play, Joe Keller, a successful businessman, is accused of knowingly shipping faulty plane parts. Twenty-one men die in a plane crash because of the defective parts.
Miller’s tragic storyline had the country in an uproar. But only a few weeks after the show’s opening, a real plane crashed because of faulty parts.
The playwright was “vindicated in a terrible way because it actually happened,” said Cathy Thomas-Grant, associate professor of theater and the show’s director.
Keller’s dilemma is a central theme of “All My Sons,” but Miller also showcases the idealism of Keller’s son, who deals with the accusations directed at his father. Other themes of the play include family secrets, integrity versus loyalty and grief.
“The play is like the core of an onion,” Thomas-Grant said. “Each layer is being pulled away to expose the heart of Miller’s work.”
Unlike Miller’s later play, “Death of a Salesman,” which focuses on what society can do for the individual, “All My Sons” dramatically portrays what the individual contributes to society.
Miller gradually brings depth to his story as the play progresses.
“All My Sons” begins on a light note.
The Keller family lives in an all-American neighborhood where all the residents seem to get along and know one another intimately. Their backyard is the setting of much of the play’s early action.
All seems well with the friendly bunch, “but drama mounts as the neighborhood begins to realize that life is not what it seems,” Thomas-Grant said.
Thomas-Grant said the upcoming student production will follow the original script.
The director said she had a really talented group to choose from for the cast, with 80 people auditioning for only nine available roles.
Thomas-Grant said making it through a series of difficult cuts says a lot about the quality of the actors performing in the show.
“It benefits the actors to work on a play like this that requires so much of them,” she added.
Many cast members said they enjoyed preparing for the opening of “All My Sons.”
“The show has been challenging and stimulating because I’ve been pushed by all the other actors in the show,” said sophomore James Asdell, who plays Keller’s brother George.
“All My Sons” is Asdell’s second theater production at Pepperdine. While he is surrounded by a predominantly upperclassmen cast in “All My Sons,” Asdell’s character is key to the show because he “puts the conflict in motion,” Asdell said.
For Thomas-Grant, who has been working on productions in Smothers Theatre for three years, the performance is her “first time back in the black box,” she said of Lindhurst Theatre.
“It has been a wonderful intimate experience, and I have learned a lot,” Thomas-Grant said.
The Fine Arts Division theater department will present the show, which runs Tuesday through Friday at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday at 2:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
Tickets cost $15 for the general public, $10 for Pepperdine students and $12 for Pepperdine faculty and staff.
Tickets are sold out for the Thursday and Saturday evening performances.
Tickets can be purchased through the Center for the Arts box office or through Ticketmaster.
10-06-2005
