Intiman’s All My Sons Kicks Ass (Review)

Go see it. No, really, you have to go see Intiman Theatre’s production of All My Sons (hurry, it’s only playing through this Sunday, April 17, and seats are limited).

Why? Because Chuck Cooper shines as patriarch Joe Keller. Because Margo Moorer is amazing as his wife, Kate.

Because director Valerie Curtis-Newton’s choice to set the play in Seattle’s Central District with a primarily African-American cast is brilliant. Because Arthur Miller’s play about corruption in the military-industrial complex is as relevant today as it was in 1947, if not more so.

Because tragedy is about the perfectibility of man, and tragedy done well inspires us to be better people, to think beyond ourselves and to embrace our common humanity.

 

I was shocked to read in the program that this is the first time in Intiman’s 40-year history that the theatre has produced an Arthur Miller play. I can’t imagine what they were waiting for! The Intiman’s small, intimate space is perfect for Miller.

Matt Smucker’s set arrows into the audience: the proscenium stage becomes the house across the street, familiar and homey, right down to the scroll-work on the screen door and the dented garbage pail next to the porch. We watch the Keller’s family drama unfold as if it is in our own neighborhood, within spitting distance of our own front yards.

That is the genius of Arthur Miller, to turn the stuff of everyday life into high tragedy, and this production tackles that dichotomy with vigor. By choosing an African-American cast, Curtis-Newton reinterprets the cadence and rhythm of Miller’s words, bringing into relief the struggles of an ordinary, working-class family haunted by the multiple legacies of war. The players revel in Miller’s sly wit, yet move easily into pathos, not overplaying either, with the unfortunate exception of Shanga Parker as George Deever.

Parker, an Associate Professor of Drama at the UW, seemed to be acting in a different production than the rest of the cast. His portrayal of George Deever was shambling and erratic, completely unconvincing as either an African-American man who had bucked systemic racism to become a lawyer, or as someone who had only hours before received the shock of a lifetime.

The disharmony is only emphasized by costume designer Melanie Taylor Burgess’s choice to put Parker in a suit that hung off of him like George was a cancer patient. The result is a George that seems more like a kid playing dress-up than a man come to save his sister from the family that destroyed their father.

By contrast, Nicole Lewis and Reginald Jackson sparkle as sweethearts Ann Deever and Chris Keller. Ms. Lewis hits just the right note as an independent young woman who knows more than she’s telling, and Jackson is equally convincing as Chris, who knows less than he thinks. Taken as a whole, the ensemble does a terrific job, and I was not the only person sniffling by the end.