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Sometimes it takes a great production to blow the dust off a classic and remind us what makes a play a masterwork. Director Joel Hammer has given Cleveland theater-goers a remarkable gift: his rendering of Arthur Miller's "All My Sons" at the Jewish Community Center's Halle Theatre is nothing short of electrifying. Pulling together an impeccable acting ensemble, headed by Dorothy and Reuben Silver, Hammer takes a "50th anniversary tribute" revival and turns it into a ticking bomb. The explosions that follow are thrilling, inevitable, and profoundly human.
I wish every would-be playwright could see this production, to understand how a masterwork so carefully plotted is nevertheless rooted in complex characters you care about. Audiences whose first exposure to Arthur Miller's work has been in earnest but creaky school or community productions often have the opinion that his plays are essentially explorations of ideas. This production is a perfect antidote: the actors embody such believable human beings, whose tangled loyalties to each other are at odds with their desires, that their every choice and revelation is accompanied by an aching empathy.
Dorothy Silver is a revelation as Kate Keller, the mother of a son missing in action for three years whom she refuses to give up for dead. As fierce and unsentimental as an eagle, she is literally breathtaking -- her quiet audacity had the audience gasping more than once.
As son Chris, who wants to marry his dead brother's fiance, Kenn McLaughlin has the engaging earnest appeal of a young Jimmy Stewart. His straight-arrow sweetness is winsome but never cloying, and makes the betrayals that rock him all the more devastating. Heather Lea Anderson is cool and beautiful as Ann, the former girl-next-door whose arrival sets the plot's mighty engines in motion. She's polite but steely-spined, a perfect foil and worthy adversary to Chris's mother.
Fred Gloor's performance as George Deever, Ann's brother, is riveting; he's all controlled power, like nitroglycerine about to pop its stopper. Like Nemesis, he carries tension and doom into the second act in every muscle, and the moment when he relaxes is amazing: his longing for a lost, loving past becomes a palpable ache.
Reuben Silver's natural geniality fuels his layered performance as the businessman-patriarch whose company's success has been tainted by scandal: selling defective aircraft engines to the Army that caused a series of plane crashes. He's utterly convincing as a man whose neighbors could mutter "murderer" about and still play cards with.
And speaking of neighbors, the ensemble is good down to the five smaller roles, particularly Sarah Jackson as the poisonous gossipy doctor's wife.
The designers also deserve great credit for conjuring atmosphere. Michael J. Simon's gorgeous house and yard set looks so real it's spooky; Jeffrey Lockshine's lighting is moody and evocative; Inda Blatch-Geib's costumes are perfectly in period.
Okay, English teachers, so I fibbed a little. "All My Sons" does indeed grapple with great themes: family loyalty, corporate culpability, love, betrayal, and community. The play is as relevant and dismaying as today's headlines, an ethical vision that is more necessary than ever for today's audiences.
It's a "don't miss".
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