'All My Sons' review — Bryan Cranston, Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Paapa Essiedu star in a revelatory production

Read our review of All My Sons, starring Bryan Cranston, Marianne Jean-Baptise, and Paapa Essiedu, now in performances at Wyndham's Theatre.

Summary

• Bryan Cranston Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Paapa Essiedu star in Ivo van Hove's take on Arthur Miller's tragedy
• All My Sons follows munitions factory owner Joe Keller who makes a terrible decision that impacts his whole family
• Jan Versweyveld creates an incredible stripped-back set that focuses the attention on the performances of the cast

Belgian director Ivo van Hove knows a thing or two about Arthur Miller. One of his greatest achievements was the Mark Strong and Nicola Walker-led A View from the Bridge, which scooped Olivier and Tony Awards in the West End and on Broadway 10 years ago. Then came his take on The Crucible in 2016. And now he turns his attention to the playwright’s first major success in a raw and revelatory production.

All My Sons assembles a perfect cast to unravel the tragedy: Bryan Cranston (of Breaking Bad fame) plays family patriarch Joe Keller, a munitions factory owner tied up in a scandal for selling defective aircraft engines during the Second World War, who is exonerated after the blame falls on his business partner Steve. His family is battling their own tragedy at home: his son Larry didn’t return from the war and, more than three years later, his wife Kate (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) is unable to let go of the belief he is still alive. Chris (Paapa Essiedu), their remaining son, is desperate to move on and wants to begin a relationship with Larry’s girlfriend, Ann (Hayley Squires).

The action plays out like a Greek tragedy on Jan Versweyveld’s stripped-back set, in which a large tree (felled during an explosive and technically dazzling storm in the play’s opening moments) covers the length of the stage and symbolically gestures to the terrible lie waiting to be cracked open. Versweyveld’s atmospheric lighting shifts from golden, amber hues to stark white and finally, more sickly greens and blues, while Tom Gibbons’s ever-present compositions (sometimes plaintive, sometimes urgent) push the plot to its denouement, but otherwise this relatively static production leaves the magic to its cast. It is refreshing to see a director happy to trust in the skill of their company.

Cranston’s jovial and avuncular Joe is immediately likeable, joshing with Chris and playing games with the neighbourhood kid. He’s a caring father and sensitive to his wife’s grief spirals, but he is also practical about the need to provide for his family and protect his name — even at a cost to others. The crushing realisation of the impact of his actions is viscerally felt in the play’s closing moments, as Cranston — hunched, broken, gasping — discovers he bears a responsibility to those outside his own family. It is a staggering performance.

All of the characters in the play exhibit a wilful ignorance to protect themselves from the greater pain of Joe’s lie. Jean-Baptiste, recently seen in Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths, brings the same emotional complexity to Kate, who barters with both husband and son to try to keep her remaining family together. She is angrily resolute that Larry is still alive, and only as the play progresses do you understand that there are more complex reasons for this urgency.

Essiedu’s Chris, determined not to have his life overshadowed by his brother’s disappearance (“Maybe we better put our minds to forgetting him,” he says bluntly), has the greatest character arc of all. Chris’s good, honest nature is corrupted by Joe’s actions, but even he must admit he put the blinkers on to avoid the truth. His inner conflict — between giving up and protecting his father — is writ large in a full-bodied, tear-soaked performance.

The show runs straight through for over two hours in a gruelling unravelling, as the characters probe and push until the horrid, unsettling truth finally rears its head. The dense text and static staging don’t make things easy for the audience, but the pay-off in the play’s denouement is worth it.

Book All My Sons tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk

Photo credit: Paapa Essiedu and Bryan Cranston in All My Sons. Inset: Cranston with Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Hayley Squires, and Paapa Essiedu. (Photos by Jan Versweyveld)