ALL MY SONS, Gate Theatre, Dublin 8pm Previews from Apr 2 Opens Apr 7 €25 (previews); €32/ 30; €34/€32; students €15 01-8744045/8746042
"It was like pushing against a door that suddenly opened from the other side," Arthur Miller wrote of his second play and his first major success. It also led into the psychologically charged rooms of his later work. Within the blighted dynamics of the Keller family lay the DNA of Death of a Salesman, Miller's more enduring drama, but here, too, the personal and political are married in the instant. Miller ushers an American family into the mould of Greek tragedy while also finding time to anticipate the Military-Industrial Complex.
Joe Keller, played by Broadway veteran and Murder, She Wrote regular, Len Cariou, is a war profiteer whose soldier son is officially MIA – Presumed Symbolic.
His company’s faulty aircraft equipment also caused several deaths that haunt the family as fiercely. The excellent Robin Lefèvre directs a strong cast for this revival – not long since Joe Dowling’s version for the Abbey – in which the cost of war may be calculated in “dollars and cents, nickels and dimes”, but its real price is immeasurable.
Can't See That? Catch this:
The New Electric Ballroom Backstage Theatre, Longford; touring to Portlaois, Galway and Cork