All My Sons by Arthur Millar

ABOUT THE PLAY:

·Miller wrote it after his Broadway disaster "The Man Who Had All The Luck". He considered AMS his last chance!

·Following the success of Tennessee Williams with The Glass Menagerie, Miller decided to go for a more commercial play in a 'realistic style'.

·It is considered to be a 'problem play'

·Follows Greek theatre principle - stressing the influence of the past on the present.

·The play opened in January 1947 and was a success.

}  Arthur Miller started writing All My Sons in 1945, inspired by World War II and the true-life story, he finished the play in 1946.

I love that almost every character has a secret.

 The most remember like this Play :This is a drama first and foremost so has a purpose to

entertain an audience.Miller tries to evoke "naturalness and realism" in the dialogue.

He wanted the setting to be "as untheatrical as possible", so relies on his props having symbolic significance.

Some important things like:

• Based on a true story of a woman who turned her father in for supplying defective parts to the army
• Inspired by Isben's The Wild Duck. Isben's play follows a young man's desire to uncover the truth regarding family secrets with disastrous results.
• Also inspired by Greek Tragedy. Joe is often referred to as a classic greek tragic hero.
• Miller took two and a half years to write the play. When he started in 1945 he was 30 years old.
• There have been two movie versions (1948 and 1986)
• The most recent Broadway production closed on Broadway on January 11, 2009. It starred John Lithgow, Dianne Wiest, and Katie Holmes.

                            Before starting work on All My Sons, I had it in my head that the main theme of the play was basically the same as Death of A Salesman – the pursuit and consequences of the American Dream. Certainly this aspect is strongly present but there is so much more going on. The themes of the play are particularly dangerous.

Theme of the play is: 

·  He sacrifice of morals
Joe is willing to lie in court and claim his partner Steve Deever is responsible for the faulty airplane parts.

·  The sacrifice for the family
Joe is willing to lie so he can give his family a certain lifestyle and pass his business down to his sons.

·  The sacrifice of a family
Joe's need to survive whatever the costs destroys the Deevers. He sacrificed another family to save his own.

·  The sacrifice of responsibility
Joe is the boss of the plant and lets someone else take the fall for the cracked parts. Joe does not see himself as being responsible to society at large (and to the boys who died) but only to his family. Chis, at one point, also sacrifices responsibility choosing to leave rather than turn his father in.

• PAST VS PRESENT

                                 He characters in the play are highly affected by the past. Some are so affected they can't accept the present such as Kate: 'He's not dead so there's no argument!' (Act One) Kate keeps Larry's room exactly as it was when he left to the point of regularly shining his shoes.

Characters:

JOE KELLER

CHRIS KELLER

KATE KELLER

ANN DEEVER

GEORGE DEEVER

LARRY KELLER

THE NEIGHBOURS

                            In  Last Miller was clearly influenced by Ibsen and Greek Tragedy. This past/present structure is a direct reflection. The events of the past come back to haunt the present to the point that there is no escape for the characters. It's amazing to see these particular characters in action.