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My prevailing thought as I was departing the theater, in fact during the play, was that I'm not sure I ever need to go and see All My Sons done ever again. Not because I don't enjoy the play, which I do, but because this was so fantastic, so, so extraordinary. I'm not sure it can ever realistically be outdone. I left the Wyndham's Theatre that afternoon with the clearest and most acute sense that this was easily the best thing I'd seen all year. Oh my God. Hey. Welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Or hello to those of you listening to this review on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo and I'm obsessed with all things theatre as a theatre critic and content creator here on social media. Earlier this month I got to go and see All My Sons at the Wyndham's Theatre, the new Eva Van Hove directed production of of the Arthur Miller play, the first major West End production from the acclaimed theatrical director since the musical Opening Night, which I famously did not enjoy. And you can find my one star review of that production wherever it is that you are seeing my face or hearing my voice. How surprising then that the same theatre maker who delivered one of my least favourite productions of last year should deliver perhaps this year's strongest. And I was already of the opinion that it was a great play and that it had been cast impeccably. All of which very much helps. But we're going to spend a lot of time today talking about the brilliant creative work that Ivo has done with this production. It's an astonishing theatrical feat, one which miraculously brings the nearly 80 year old play into blistering contemporary context. This production manages to make All My Sons feel as though it was written yesterday, and I cannot wait to tell you more about how. In the meantime, I would love to hear the thoughts of anyone else who has seen this production or would like to comment down below if you've seen this or another production of All My Sons, and stay tuned to hear what I thought. If you enjoy listening to my review, make sure to subscribe here on YouTube or follow me on podcast platforms. And stay tuned for more Reviews coming in 2026, as well as my imminent roundups of best and worst shows that I've seen in 2025. For now though, what was so extraordinary about All My Sons? So a little context about the play itself, which is quite frequently revived. I first discovered it through a recording of a production from, I want to say, around 2010 in the West End, starring David Suchet and Zoe Wanamaker, directed, I believe, by Howard Davies, and it's enjoyed major revival since on either side of the Atlantic. It's one of those great American plays which is staged fairly often, not unlike Death of a Salesman, and it's something of a scathing indictment of the American dream and a reminder of the importance of community. At least that's very much what's uplifted in this particular production, a post World War II Reflection written by Arthur Miller in 1947, Wasting no Time whatsoever, very much capturing the raw grief of a nation affected by loss, but one which we observe from the vantage point of a small suburban neighborhood, in fact entirely from one backyard, the backyard of the Kellers, Joe and Kate, who are very respected within their community, in spite of the fact that Joe was arrested during the war along with his business partner, allegedly for knowingly supplying deficient military equipment to the US military, which resulted in multiple deaths, this being not only a deeply serious criminal act, but also a particularly shameful one within that community, one whose sons, brothers and sweethearts were themselves away at war, as were the two sons of Joe and Kate Keller, Chris and his brother Larry. Now Chris returned from war, but did so an emotionally changed man after what he experienced there. And Larry sadly never did return, but also was never recovered and never officially declared dead, which leaves a certain amount of unfortunate space for his mother to hope that he somehow miraculously survived, spurred on in her determination by stories she reads in the newspaper about other young men arriving home amidst similar circumstances, having been missing for years. And what initially seems to us perhaps to be this delusional faith as a result of her unimaginable grief, is later substantiated as more of a willful manifestation, as other realities about things that took place during the years of the Second World War come to light. Brought to the forefront on this particular day, one which begins with a storm overnight that topples a tree planted in Larry's memory by a challenging situation. As Larry's as yet unmarried sweetheart, Annie, has returned home to the neighborhood where she once lived. She is proximal to every aspect of the Keller's story, not just because she was Larry's sweetheart, but also because she is one of two children of Joe's former business partner, who, though Joe was exonerated during the trial, has been incarcerated ever since. Annie does not begrudge Joe Keller the circumstances of her father's arrest, and it is seemingly a very pleasant reunion, though the question seemingly on everybody's lips is why exactly? It is that she has come, and it transpires that she has arrived on the invitation of their son Chris, who is hoping to ask for her hand in marriage, the two of them having been in contact over the last few months. Only he knows that this will be a difficult bridge to cross, not for himself and Annie, but for his mother, because the notion of him becoming engaged and marrying his brother's girl, Larry's girl, implies not only that everyone is similarly subscribing to the understanding that Larry is dead and is never to return. After all, she still has his clothes hanging, as they were in his childhood bedroom, waiting for him. Why wouldn't Annie? But also, as Kate tells us fairly early on, on her worst days, when her faith lapsing, she thinks of the fact that Annie remains unmarried, that she continues to wait, and that gives her hope. So the idea that Annie might give up waiting and marry her other son, no less, is a very challenging one for her to come to terms with. It is not, however, the most significant challenge that the family is going to have to navigate before the end of a very long day. And it does, in many ways, feel like a sort of a contemporary Greek tragedy. There is this fateful, dreadful, unimaginable revelation set to emerge, one which the audience is able to gather just a little bit earlier than ever, everybody on stage, and one which redefines the emotional meanings of all of the established relationships, this awful, dreadful truth with which everyone must come to terms and the reckoning that ensues. It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that this production reminded Me so much of a previous one at the same theater. One of the earliest shows I saw this year, which was Robert Ike's version of Oedipus, since transferred to Broadway, where it is currently playing at Studio 54. Something about the single act intensity and these dual powerhouse performances, but also so this extraordinary slow, painful walk up towards a fateful conclusion felt very similar to this production of All My Sons. But as much as I really adore that production of Oedipus, I think the comparative heft of this as well as the wider conversation, you know, Oedipus is talking brilliantly about its own circumstances and this particular dynamic and the relationships in this family. All My Sons is able to have that conversation and play it dedicatedly, but also simultaneously engage in a conversation about the entire nation, nay, the entire world. It was also familiar of another production of an Arthur Miller play directed by Ivo Van Hove, this time A View from the Bridge around a decade ago, a production which once again I saw on screen and very much regretted not having the chance to experience in person because of its immediacy and urgency. And the level of intensity that was established in that production, as well as this forensic examination of complex relationship dynamics under this patriarchal figure, is very reminiscent of what is being conjured on stage in All My Sons, only in that the initial setting was sort of comparably more bleak from the beginning, whereas this one sort of burns out steadily from a place of convivial neighbourly warmth to the ashes of hopelessness, loss and despair. Let me tell you a little more about how Eva Venhove has brought All My Sons to the stage. I used the word intensity, then, and it's very characteristic of the kind of work that Eva Van Hove and Robert Eick are putting together. It's also the context in which this particular production is established, as this entirely black curtain rises to reveal a fairly blank stage upon which a tree stands amidst a gathering storm, one which, in these wordless introductory moments, falls to the ground before the curtain is lowered once more. When it rises once more, it's a discernibly peaceful morning. Only the fallen tree in the midst of this bare set is impossible to ignore. And it's the conspicuous sort of elephant in the room for the remainder of the production as they stand over it and play scenes from either side of it. It is representative, of course, and obviously of Larry, for whom it was dedicated, forcing his mother, Kate, more so than anyone else, to reckon with the reality of his death as it lies there, toppled in front of her. And as if the Meaning wasn't apparent enough. Later in the play, Chris will go about trying to saw parts off of the tree in an attempt to begin moving it out of away and getting rid of it, as he continues to try and persuade his parents to agree to the marriage between him and his perhaps late brother's sweetheart, Annie. And there is another detail, too, a brilliant one, in the scenic design, which I only noticed a little later on when a shift in lighting allowed me to the scenic and lighting design of the entire production. By the way, the creation of Jan Versa Weld such a crucial creative component of this piece of theatre that they are actually credited distinctly alongside Arthur Miller and Evo Van Hove on the front of the program, which I think is just brilliant. But it's this floor and back wall set with a single circular cutout resembling initially the sun, but the color behind which changes to allow it to become certain things. We also discover that it's a window when Chris appears in it, looking down on the scene that is being played in the back garden. Though for the most part, when we see characters enshrined in this lit circle, they are not able to perceive what is happening in the playing space. But on this back wall with the cutout, there is a carving in the exact shape of the fallen tree, almost like a scar that has been left on the house, on the home, on this family. It's the unfading reminder of what it is that they lost and the context in which everything else that is going to happen in the play matters far more deeply and personally. This can never become a story simply about other people's children who went to war, because so did Larry. And the ingenious. The utterly extraordinary thing about this carving of the shape of the tree on wall is that in a certain lighting state, it aligns perfectly with the shadow of the tree when it is upright, which I only noticed towards the very end and was just such a staggering, brilliant choice. It's also, I assume, how they were able to carve it out in the first place by casting the shadow, I don't know, but really fantastic. I mentioned how that cutout seems to resemble the warm glow of the sun to begin with. As night falls, it better resembles a moon. But there's also a moment where the lighting shifts entirely and it turns greenish bl as Kate is reflecting on her belief that Larry is still alive and will one day be able to return to them. As we are guided through this fantasy in which she takes comfort, the relevance of the sun as a visual metaphor in this story is Made clear to us when Kate insists that Larry must be alive. Some things just have to be. He has to be alive. And it would be too impossible to imagine that he might not be. Some things simply have to be. The sun has to rise, and it's this reminder of constancy, I suppose, and the world continuing to turn. But also what we come to realize as the harsh and exposing light of day. Now, the costumes have been designed by Anne Doyes. And it's anachronistic, esque, sort of modern costuming, but not in a way that is distracting. At times it feels like certain elements of it could be period appropriate. But then there are other aspects which definitely aren't. I think, as with the aesthetic of the set design, we are just playing the story and portraying these characters in a way that a lot of contemporary directors like to. Without necessarily focusing on distracting visual elements. It's all about the tree and this circle. And they are characterized sufficiently in their costumes without necessarily being tethered to a specific time and place. And actually beyond, you know, the sensibilities of the era and the notion of a woman going unmarried. And also the business and finances and the way that things were done at the time. As well as certain specificities in the material about the war that has just happened. There's no reason this couldn't be empowered to feel like a story taking place after a subsequent war. Now, the sound design is by Tom Gibbons. And this is one of the other crucial creative aspects of the production. Because it's present pretty much throughout, the play is almost always accompanied by background music. What begins as this sort of ethereal drone inferring the notion that something is perhaps a little awry, later swells into romantic strings as the lighting becomes red. Amidst the courtship of Chris and Annie, with all of this baggage in between them, with this fallen tree dividing them on stage, playing what is, in spite of all of that, a deeply romantic scene. Very hard to find the romance of a play like All My Sons amidst these circumstances. But they really do. Later, when these characters find themselves in more overt confrontation with the arrival of Annie's brother George, who has, for the first time, been visiting with his father, who has shared certain details with him that have then driven him to the home of the Kellers to go and retrieve his sister, the lighting shifts in increments, punctuated by a metronome sound. His arrival into the play is extensively foreshadowed. He is announced by another character, a neighbour, who has gone to go and retrieve him from the station and warns Annie and Chris that they ought to simply send him away and not allow him to come into the house. What he has to share is so explosive, so volatile. And the staging of this moment is visceral as he appears in the auditorium alongside the audience and the house lights. Come up and stay up, up for a very long time. Of course, the dynamic changes, shifts completely with the arrival of Kate, who manages subtly to placate George and remind him of the joys of childhood. He reconnects unexpectedly with another woman still living in the neighborhood, with whom he clearly shared some sort of a young romantic connection in simpler, happier times. And the creative control of this scene continues as Kate sits him down on the floor like a child. He removes his father's hat that he's wearing, a demonstration of. Of this shift of allegiance and priority. And we hear in the ever present music, a sort of a children's music box kind of a sound. Ultimately, he agrees to stay for dinner. The lighting reverts to what it was. He smiles and is transformed. It doesn't, however, prevent us from arriving at the moment of realization that we ultimately reach. At which point a dreadful reckoning between father and son is underscored with these choral funereal chants. One of the most eye catching aspects of this production is the running time. Upwards of two hours without an interval, the whole thing plays uninterrupted, which is admittedly a marathon to endure for a live audience. But if you are able to, and I know that it is to a certain extent inaccessible, I do think that it's worth it. There is reward in this unceasing intensity. And I felt my pulse quicken cumulatively as we were going through each moment of it. I must have breathed, I must have blinked at some point during those two hours. But I couldn't tell you whether or not I did. I was so transfixed by this utterly extraordinary theater, by every single pulse raising second. And I think it would have been enough, I'd have been satisfied enough if this had simply been a great, brilliantly acted production of All My Sons. With these relationships, like I said, examined in this excruciating forensic detail, ascending to a boiling point point of operatic dramatic proportions. Only Ivo's production of this classic play transcends the specificity of its original context and reaches levels of meaning and relevance in ways that I hadn't conceived of. I was shocked that this could be so profoundly brought into conversation with where we are right now. The speech that Jo has to Annie about forgiving her father felt completely pursuant to conversations around cancel culture and individuals from that gender generation advocating for each other and like figures in entertainment, advocating on behalf of their disgraced peers. Early in the play, when Chris and Annie are speaking alone, he tells her about this newfound sense of responsibility that men have to each other after everything that he witnessed during the war. And it's that notion of responsibility and empathy in the largest sense, and truly what we owe to each other, what individuals owe to each other, within a family, within a neighborhood, within a community, within a nation, within the world, that is the emerging theme and conversation of this production, which very much feels like it's talking to the current era of American politics. There is something about the way that Bryan Cranston as Joe is styled in the final moments that feels reflective of the image of perhaps Trump, or at least Trump voters, complete with the baseball cap. Not in a way that's obvious enough to be crass, but also in a way that felt impossible not to notice. There's also a parallel in the script of something that George says to Annie when he tells her, having now reconnected to his father, who they have been ignoring and blaming for years, he tells her, we did a terrible thing. And almost exactly the same words are exchanged between Chris and his father earlier on in the play when they are talking about having supported and endorsed what they believe to be Kate's delusions for as long as they have about the possibility that Larry is still alive. It's very relevant to the emerging message of this production that the young characters of the play, this younger generation, bear all of this guilt about the responsibility that they have to the older generation. And when combined with the ultimate truth of this narrative, the betrayal of an entire generation by their parents feels powerfully prescient. That is the answer to why we need another production of All My Sons so soon after the last. That is the answer to the two often unasked questions. Why this play? Why right now? It's extraordinary to me that a nearly 80 year old play could be fueled by Eva Van Hove to speak with such articulate, inescapable meaning about the exact times that we are living in an entire generation betrayed at the altar of their parents choices. That is what this All My Sons is talking about. Of course, an unforgettable, extraordinary aspect of this production is its company. Let's talk about these performance.