All My Sons
Old Vic, London

SET at a time when Americans, sure of their place in the world after the defeat of fascism in WWII, were able to pursue their collective dream, Arthur Miller’s All My Sons begins in the sunny, vernal tranquility of a leafy Mid West suburb.

That sense of security is personified in the figure of Joe Keller (Bill Pullman), a successful businessman and archetypal family man. Outside a sunlit clapboard house bordered by a picket fence he reads the papers, jokes with neighbours and chats with his son Chris (Colin Morgan).

But gradually, through throwaway comments and casual conversation – testament to Miller’s skill as a playwright – we learn that he and his wife Kate (Sally Field) had another son, Jerry, who went missing in action during the second world war which had finished only two years previously.

Kate, finding hope in the mysteries of astrology, insists against all reason that he is still alive. We learn too that the upstanding Joe has spent time in prison for allegedly supplying defective cylinder heads to the US Air Force, though he has since been exonerated.

When Anne (Jenna Colman), once Jerry’s fiancee and now courting Chris, arrives, the recent past returns with a vengeance. She’s also the daughter of Joe’s former and now disgraced business partner Steve, still in prison.

The classic trope of Greek tragedy, whereby the protagonist is eventually laid low by a fatal flaw in their character, plays out in the narratives of both Joe and Kate — given impressive performances by Pullman and Field — as the proverbial chickens come home to roost.

While some of the plotting comes across as a little contrived in Jeremy Herrin’s production — the sudden return of Anne with news she has kept from everyone after two years living far away doesn’t entirely convince — Miller nevertheless bravely strikes at the heart of the complexities, contradictions and venality of the US post-war boom.

Courageous, because this play led to his appearance before the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee during the anti-communist McCarthy witch-hunts of the 1950s.

Though it may have lost a little of its dramatic power in the decades since it was first produced, the universal truths that All My Sons reveals about the shaky foundations of the American Dream still resonate profoundly in the era of Trump.

Runs until June 6, box office: oldvictheatre.com