War Comes Home in ‘All My Sons’

Theater Review

War lasts a long time. It lingers in the air long after the final troops return home and others have been laid to rest. It visits soldiers in their sleep and haunts families still waiting for their boy to return’years later. Such is the postwar atmosphere in which Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons” is set. The 1947 family drama preceded “Death of a Salesman” by two years, establishing some of the themes that Miller would further develop in his later works. The Theatre Palisades production, directed by Sherry Coon and performed by a talented cast, successfully captures the multi-layered traumatic effects of loss on one family struggling to face the ghosts of their past. The show runs through October 9 at Pierson Playhouse. The entire play is appropriately set in the Keller’s cozy backyard, symbolic of Midwestern comfort and hospitality. It’s a gathering place for friends and family who pop in and out, expected or not. A tall, white lattice fence encloses the yard, which connects to a dusty blue two-story house with white trim, flower boxes in the window sills, a swinging screen door and a porch complete with a rocking chair. Designed by Sherman Wayne, this set earns applause at first sight. Joe Keller (Jack Winnick) and his wife, Kate (Joanna Churgin), don’t seem to mind living in the bubble of their Ohio backyard, where they can keep a disturbing family secret close to home. Kate is in deep denial over the loss of their son, Larry, who’s been missing in action for about three years now, and also over their other son Chris’s plan to marry Ann Deever, Larry’s sweetheart. When Chris (Jim Felton) returns home with Ann (Kate Woodruff), a tree planted in Larry’s honor has fallen over, and everybody reads some symbolism into it. “We all got hit by the same lightening,” Ann says about Larry’s death. In a poignant twist, her father and Joe were business partners whose company knowingly sold faulty equipment to the Army. However, while Joe managed to avoid prison, her own father is serving time. Ann acts as a sort of peacemaker throughout the play, even though she has questions about Joe’s honor. However, her brother, George (Stephen Peirick), arrives on the scene filled with resentment towards Joe, with the intention of preventing his sister’s marriage to Chris. In the leading roles, Winnick and Churgin deliver powerful and moving performances. As Joe, Winnick crafts a desperate father painfully unable to confront his guilt and express grief over the soldiers who died in airplane crashes caused by his company’s faulty parts. He achieves a delicate balance of pride, playful unease and defensiveness as he inappropriately agrees to play “jail” with the neighborhood kid and attempts to hold down the family fort by ignoring the change around him. Churgin is utterly convincing as a grief-stricken mother who’s overwhelmed with sorrow but also with the burden of her husband’s guilty conscience and her need to protect him. She manipulatively attempts to preserve the past because the painful reality of the present is unbearable. Churgin’s gripping performance makes us feel her pain in a very real way, especially in the scenes where she desperately tries to project her characters’ emotions on others. Through the characters of Chris, Ann and George, we are made to understand that the children of war not only inherit their parents’ suffering but also the guilt of tragic decisions made during wartime. As Ann, Kate Woodruff cleverly portrays a sweet and sensitive but also an assertive young woman who is able to confront Mrs. Keller and stand up for herself under the harsh scrutiny of neighbor Sue Bayliss (Dale Waddington Horowitz). These strong female characters aren’t afraid to put each other in place and challenge the seemingly more dependent male characters. It’s hard to see what Ann loves so much about Chris, but she tells us it’s his honesty and “the way he relaxes me,” and we believe her. Chris, who served as a commander in the war, proves that he loves her by bringing her home to his parents even though he is ashamed that everything about them and their home has remained eerily the same. For Chris, a man’s morals are more significant than family loyalty, which becomes a major conflict for him as the play progresses. In part, his struggle reveals a gap between generations because where his father, of the Depression era, made decisions based on financial concerns and the desire to maintain a successful business to pass on to his son, Chris believes that a man’s morals should guide his actions. But in the Keller world, forgiveness’of oneself and others’is rare, which makes this play a heavy, albeit powerful one. While the characters’ emotions understandably run high, some of their arguments and messages could perhaps be delivered a little more subtlety, with less shouting. Overall, the cohesive production, produced by Shirley Churgin, is one of the best I’ve seen at Pierson Playhouse. The costumes (Sherry Coon), along with the music (designed by Cindy Dellinger and edited by Jeff Scott), transport us directly to the 1940s. It’s also great to see some young talent in the play; Monica Gilsanz played Bert, the neighborhood kid, in last weekend’s performance, and Lili Boyle and Dylan LaRocque will appear in upcoming performances. The play runs Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. For tickets, call 454-1970 or visit the box office at Pierson Playhouse, 941 Temescal Canyon Rd., Wednesday through Saturday, 3:30 to 6:30 p.m.