However, when paterfamilias Joe Keller says “It’s gonna rain tonight” in the opening moments (always a consideration here!) and, after the interval as the light fades, his neighbour states “It’s getting dark,” there’s a perfect fit between venue and play.
Set in 1946, the year before its award-winning Broadway premiere, this fact-inspired story – of a self-made business man accused of supplying faulty munitions to the US Air Force during the war – brought Miller his first stage success.
Cleared of all charges, Joe Keller (an avuncular Tom Mannion) has worked hard to rebuild his reputation as a decent man, whilst his anguished wife Kate (Brid Brennan) clings resolutely to the belief that their son, Larry, missing in action for over three years, will one day return. But when his surviving son Chris (Charles Aitken) invites Larry’s sweetheart to visit, their carefully reconstructed life threatens to implode as the real truth of the consequences of Joe’s moral weakness are exposed.
An effective, if somewhat treacherous, set (Lizzie Clachan’s tangle of strangulating roots proliferating beneath the floor) adds to the atmosphere. And although it doesn’t always completely involve, as darkness falls and the focus narrows, Timothy Sheader’s competent production really comes into its own.
When: Until June 7
Where: Open Air Theatre, Inner Circle, Regents Park, NW1 4NR
Tickets cost £25.00 – £45.00 (premium seats are £55). Click here to book
Image credit: Charles Aitken (Chris Keller) and Amy Nuttall (Ann Deever) in All My Sons at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre. Photo: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan
