All My Sons

Q&A with Director David Feldshuh

Q. What is it like directing actors ranging from the experienced Peter
Michael Goetz to students who are just beginning in their fields?
A. Peter Goetz has been my friend for 40 years. We were in graduate school
together as actors and I directed him in his first major role and my first
major play at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. Peter is the ultimate craftsman in the theatre.
He knows everything aboutacting and has a magnificent voice and ability to nuance any line with humor or emotion.
He is continuously inventive but at the same timealways maintains the truth of the character.
Finally, he is a joy to have in rehearsal and we all love working with him.

Q. In your opinion, what is the strongest theme of the play?
A. The power of war and violence to undermine moral behavior and family love.

 

Director David Feldshuh

Q. All My Sons was written nearly 60 years ago, what makes it relevant today?
A. We are at war. Making money is part of war. Families are affected by
war. The play is deeply resonant today.

Q. What do you think gives this play such emotional intensity?
A. First, Miller believed and was passionate about making ethical choices and this belief is evident in his writing.
Second, the conflict needed todestroy a family deeply bound to each other feels true and intense.
Finally, the structure of the play builds to a high point not once buttwice: at the end of act 2 and then again at the end of act 3.
By structuring the play this way, Miller gives it a feeling of real tragedy.

Program Notes

About the Author
Arthur Asher Miller was born on October 17, 1915 in New York to Jewish immigrant parents. His father, Isidore Miller, manufactured ladies-wear and owned his own shop until the Great Depression hit, causing the ruination of his business. After Miller’s father’s shop closed, the Miller family into a small house in Brooklyn – one similar to the house in Death of a Salesman. Miller graduated from high school in 1932 and worked for two years to earn money for college. He attended the University of Michigan in 1934, initially intending to study history and economics, but after playwriting caught his interest, switching his major to English. While at Michigan, Miller wrote several plays and earned two Avery Hopgood awards for his work. Upon completion of his degree in 1938, Miller accepted a job with the Federal Theater Project, writing scripts for radio programs such as Columbia Workshop (CBS) and Cavalcade of America (NBC). He continued working as a writer during the war, and also moonlighted (literally) as a shipfitter’s helper in the Brooklyn Naval Yard. In 1940, Miller married his college sweetheart Mary Slattery, with whom he eventually fathered two children. Miller’s received his first Broadway production in 1944; The Man Who Had All the Luck was a flop, closing after only four performances. But success came to Miller soon after: in 1947, All My Sons premiered on Broadway, garnering acclaim for both Miller and director Elia Kazan. Two years later, Miller’s career soared with Death of a Salesman – the play which one him a Pulitzer Prize. As Miller entered into the limelight, his political leanings sparked an investigation by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. After writing The Crucible (a play produced in 1953 which operates as an allegory for the terrors of McCarthyism), Miller was called to testify before the Committee in 1956. While Miller admitted to attending Communist Party meetings for writers in 1947, he refused to name others present, and was cited for contempt of congress. That same year, Miller divorced Mary Slattery and married Marilyn Monroe. During their short marriage, he concentrated on writing for film rather than the stage; his first screenplay The Misfits was released in 1961, the year that Monroe and Miller were divorced. Marilyn died a year later, and Miller married Inge Morath, a photojournalist with whom he collaborated on two books. Following a nine year hiatus, Miller returned to writing for the stage with the autobiographical works After the Fall and Incident at Vichny. In his lifetime, Miller received two New York Drama Critics Circle Awards, three Tony awards, the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Kennedy Center Honors Lifetime Achievement Award (1984), the Lucille Lortel Lifetime Achievement Award (1998), a Special Drama Desk Award for Lifetime Achievement, and a special Tony for Lifetime Achievement (1999). Miller died February 10, 2005, of heart failure in his home in Roxbury, Connecticut.

About the Play
All My Sons premiered in 1947 and was Arthur Miller’s first Broadway success as a playwright. The performance was directed by Elia Kazan and was produced by Kazan, Harold Clurman, and Walter Fried. It starred Ed Begley (father of contemporary actor Ed Begley, Jr.) as Joe Keller. Miller’s inspiration for the play came from a true story about a daughter turning in her father for selling faulty machinery to the army. The play ran for 328 performances, and won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award as well as the first Tony ever awarded for Best Play.

Arthur Miller’s Thoughts on the Play
All My Sons has often been called a moral play, and it is that, but the concept of morality is not quite as purely ethical as it has been made out to appear, nor is it so in the plays that follow.…Joe Keller's trouble, in a word, is not that he cannot tell right from wrong but that his cast of mind cannot admit that he, personally, has any viable connection with his world, his universe, or his society. He is not a partner in society, but an incorporated member, so to speak, and you cannot sue personally the officers of a corporation….This fortress which All My Sons lays siege to is the fortress of unrelatedness. It is an assertion not so much of a morality in terms of right and wrong, but of a moral world's being such because men cannot walk away from certain of their deeds.

Arthur Miller’s Comments About Observing the Audience for All My Sons
The success of a play, especially one's first success, is somewhat like pushing against a door which is suddenly opened from the other side. One may fall on one's face or not, but certainly a new room is opened that was always securely shut until then. For myself, the experience was invigorating. It made it possible to dream of daring more and risking more. The audience sat in silence before the unwinding of All My Sons and gasped when they should have, and I tasted that power which is reserved, I imagine, for playwrights, which is to know that by one's invention a mass of strangers has been publicly transfixed.

Excerpts were taken from Introduction to the Collected Plays, published in The Theater Essays of Arthur Miller (Da Capo Press, New York, 1996).

World War II Trivia
1. What was the American nickname for the P-40 aircraft?
(A) Warhawk (B) Kittyhawk (C) Flying Fortress (D) Thunderbolt

2. How did the canopy of the Bell P-39 Airacobra aircraft open?
(A) The canopy was hinged sideways so that the pilot could enter.
(B) The canopy slid backwards so that the pilot could enter.
(C) The canopy was fixed. The pilot entered the cockpit through a side door on the fuselage.
(D) The plane had an open cockpit and no canopy.

3. When the draft began in 1940, how long was the designated term of service for a draftee?
(A) 12 months (B) 24 months (C) 36 months (D) 48 months

4. In 1940, only 10% of women who worked were employed in factories. What percentage of employed women worked in factories in 1944?
(A) 15% (B) 20% (C) 25% (D) 30%

5. Which Disney character was used in government ads to persuade the public to pay an increased income tax?
(A) Mickey Mouse (B) Minnie Mouse (C) Donald Duck (D) Goofy

6. What kind of World War II aircraft did Former President George Bush pilot?
(A) Corsair (B) TBF Avenger (C) Hellcat (D) Wildcat


Answers
1. A. Warhawk. Curtiss manufactured the P-40 Warhawk. This aircraft was the principal fighter of the U.S. Army Air Corps pursuit (fighter) squadrons. The British also used the P-40s and originally called them “Tomahawks.” They then ordered the P-40D from Curtiss and coined the name “Kittyhawk” for this new version of the fighter. The name Kittyhawk is often mistakenly applied to the whole Warhawk range.
2. C. The pilot entered through a side door in the fuselage. Bud Anderson of the 357th Fighter Group remarks on what it was like to fly the plane: “The Airacobra was mincemeat above 15,000 feet, and useless in Western Europe, where virtually all of the flying and fighting was at double that altitude. ... But in October of 1942, I was thrilled to be flying it. It was unique, with its engine behind the cockpit, and the propeller drive shaft running between the pilot's legs. It had a tricycle landing gear, unlike anything in our arsenal except the P-38. And the cockpit was more like a car's, with a door instead of a swing-up or sliding canopy, and windows that actually rolled up and down with a crank. You could taxi the thing while resting your elbows on the sill, like cruising the boulevard on a Saturday night.”
3. A. 12 months. In 1941, Roosevelt asked the U.S. Congress to extend the term of duty for draftees beyond 12 months. When Congress approved the request immediately, many drafted soldiers threatened to desert after their 12 month terms were complete.
4. D. 30%. Some scholars claim that the need for women during the war effort opened up the workplace for women in the future, as it was the first time women were employed in job posts traditionally occupied by men.
5. C. Donald Duck. When the government called in Walt Disney to make a short film encouraging the American public to pay their income taxes, Disney decided that the film should star Disney’s biggest star at the time – Donald Duck. The film featured Donald Duck as a reluctant taxpayer who transforms into an enthusiastic taxpayer when he realizes that paying his taxes will help the war effort.
6. B. The TBF Avenger. This three seat Torpedo aircraft entered into service just in time to participate in the Battle of Midway in 1942. Its nicknames were Chuff, Turkey, Pregnant Beast, and Tarpon (Royal Air Force).