"All My Sons". Exeter College Garden. Review by Victoria Tayler

Arthur Miller for a garden play? I’ll admit I was hesitant. Garden plays in Oxford tend to follow a certain, uninterrupted niche. Shakespeare is a classic, and there is the occasional, colourful and often comedic outlier like Queen College’s yearly Eglesfield musical, Exeter's own previous rarity ‘The Mandrake’, and Trinity's forthcoming 'Great Gatsby'. Rarely do people take the opportunity to go in earnestly on a garden play, and All My Sons, as a play about war and disillusionment with one’s father, is definitely on the dour side. But this production was a delight.

All My Sons follows a seemingly happy family in a semi-rural town, in mid-century, middle America. Joe Keller (Tristan Wood, in his Miller era after Death of a Salesman) is a family man, a hit with the neighbourhood kids, and suspected of greenlighting a war-time manufacturing disaster which caused the death of twenty-one pilots (not the band). He was acquitted (just) but rumours follow behind the Keller family, which Joe attempts to shake off by the strength of full-blooded American masculinity. His wife Kate (Savannah Brooks) is all the stereotypes of femininity incarnate: aggressively nurturing, mystical and intuitive, and concerned with protecting her family from looming devastation. When we meet her, she is troubled by the storm, which has felled the tree she planted in commemoration of her son Larry (missing in the war) and the impending arrival of her son’s ex-girlfriend, who is arriving to marry her second son Chris (Michael Gormley). Tension ensues as various characters argue over the proposed marriage, Larry’s fate, and the ‘rumours’ which threaten to bring down the family.

The play doesn’t pretend to triviality, it’s ruminating, confronting, stern. Yet, the interval comes and even my least theatre-inclined friends (think statistics major who hasn’t read a book in 15 years) are raving about it. How did this team do it? It’s a cluster of things. From the get-go, the set is beautiful, immediately enticing, intricately functional. Washing lines of vintage-inspired laundry provide a sentimentalist touch of 1950s America against the ornate backdrop of the Radcliffe Camera, and the fellows garden steps lead up to Keller’s ‘house’ creating the feeling of something reserved, unknowable, mysterious. The drama of the play takes place in the yard, perhaps perfect for a garden play, an inspired choice. The actors are talented without exception (unusual for the more relaxed, ‘players trope’ vibe of the Oxford garden play) and their American accents are impeccable. It’s hard not to be won over. You’re in for the ride.

All that said, I think the second half is really where this production shines (namely because that’s where all the drama is). I could go on, but I’ll restrain myself to my favourite moments. One of the things I love and hate most about Miller plays is how intensely separate the worlds of men and women are, even when they exist in the closest proximity, man and wife, or to-be-weds. This comprises an especially tragic and exaggerated detail in All My Sons, where the reality of the Kellers’ world itself hinges on the equal but opposite delusions harboured by Joe and Kate. This production teases out those differences with sophistication. Honor Thompson as Ann Deever is restrained and melancholic, but stormy. Sammah Fadella as Sue Bayliss gives a strong performance waxing about her husband’s disinterest and emotional (if not literal) infidelity, complete with a sarcastic curtsy and all the accoutrements. Savannah Brooks as Kate Keller is both incredibly skillful and perfectly directed. Her small, grieving shriek invites the play’s climax: it’s a ghostly call.

There are a number of other directorial flourishes, indeed, the play is so carefully calibrated it had me wondering if everything was deliberate. George Deever (Paul Tomlinson) comes on stage, bringing with him the first signs of calamity, just as the bells toll for ten. Surely an accident, but I really wouldn’t put it past this team to have everything running to a T.

Another thing this production gets right? The character of the Kellers’ second son and to some extent, the leading man, Chris Keller. It’s so satisfying to see such an immensely tricky character nailed. In typical Miller fashion, Chris is part allegory, part masculine stereotype, part brutal, heart-wrenching realism. In the first part of the second half, his complete insistence that all is well in the Keller household almost feels like he’s scheming. He’s papering over the cracks as his father did, and we strain against it, knowing from the arrival of George that things can never be the same. Yet, the duality of the character is such that we, like the characters in the play, yearn to believe in his words. He’s capable, charismatic, calming. As Ann puts it, when he says something, she knows it’s true. The character carries with him the image of a world safe and yet unreachable. And Gormley nails this, moving us from line to line so that we almost forget the impending disaster. To add more levels of difficulty, the incoming tragedy centres almost entirely around Chris’ character, as we watch that perfect world get shattered with the realisation that the world is not made out of honourable men. It’s devastating, even if the ideal is lofty, and it’s a tough thing to communicate to an audience. But Michael Gormley is the perfect Chris, he just gets it so right.

I was sobbing before the metaphorical curtain even fell. I only wish the production had the benefit of slightly more equipment, some kind of a better set up for the gun shot which brings about the end of the play. It has a sombre resonance as it currently stands (ever slightly muffled) but by this point I was so distraught I needed a cathartic BANG, a real tearjerker. But really, that’s all testament to the success of the play. I hope (earnestly) that the team is proud of themselves. Next year’s production has big shoes to fill!