The words wretched abortion of a catastrophe get thrown around a lot these days, and I think they've lost their collective meaning just a touch. But I feel these words perfectly describe the horrors I saw on the stage today.
Arthur Miller, perhaps America's greatest playwright, wrote All My Sons as a scathing indictment of war profiteering and the corruption of American capitalism. The play begs the viewer to acknowledge his/her responsibility for the universe outside him/herself and his/her family. It's by no means a subtle play, but it most certainly powerful.
And this is what confounds me about the production (or more appropriately, massacre) that I witnessed. The play isn't subtle. Its meaning is made crystal clear by the end of the third act. Yet, the director of this production, a one, Simon McBurney, decided to add a few bells and whistles to really grab the dumbass audience's attention.
For starters, everyone was yelling. John Lithgow (Joseph Keller) shouted every single line he had. Many of the cast-members did the same. And on top of the shouting, much of the acting was bad. Take, for example, the Broadway debut of Katie Holmes (Ann Deever). Holy SHIT! I've seen High School actresses perform with more confidence than she did. She didn't know what to do with her hands half the time. And her delivery seemed to say "I don't know what the fuck this play is about." Patrick Wilson (Chris Keller) sucked in a similar manner, but he isn't pretty or married to Tom Cruise, so who cares? The only redeeming acting performance was Diane Wiest (Kate Keller), but man, the fucking shouting.
Then there's the blocking. No single character's movement makes any sense to me. They all just circle around each other incessantly, and walk from one side of the yard to the other with no apparent motivation to do so. Yes, Miller wrote a relatively static play physically. But guess what, this play is about the words! GOD!
Oh! and the fucking projections. What was with the fucking projections? They projected shit onto the back of the stage during the characters' monologues about the war. The words are doing everything. There is no need for the visual accompaniment. Yet we see images of planes and war and shit. And then they throw sound into it. Too much happens during these monologues which are about ONE PERSON SPEAKING! That's why they're monologues. Christ!
I can't even get into the shit about the ending because it will ruin it for you, but man, McBurney fucked the ending really bad. SO fucking bad.
Anyway, fuck Simon McBurney.
