Jessica Robinson, Richard Dey, Jeffrey Thomas, Emma Kinane in 'All my sons' at Circa TheatreJoe and Kate Keller are liv­ing a ver­sion of the Amer­i­can Dream. They have a com­fort­able lifestyle, a lov­ing son, nice new neigh­bours. How­ev­er there is a dark event in their past involv­ing their old neigh­bours which will impact on their future.

Arthur Miller’s Tony Award win­ning play was first per­formed in 1947.  It’s an ele­gant­ly struc­tured script, that twists and turns as it unfolds the sto­ry before us.

Direc­tor Susan Wil­son has assem­bled a cast who bring their A‑game for this pro­duc­tion.  The four main cast mem­bers, Emma Kinane (as Kate Keller), Jef­frey Thomas (as Joe Keller), Richard Dey (as Chris Keller), and Jes­si­ca Robin­son (as Ann Deev­er) hold the shift­ing rela­tion­ships between their char­ac­ters very strong­ly.  A par­tic­u­lar high­light is the scene near the end of Act 2 between Thomas and Dey. (You’ll know which one it is.) Kinane is tremen­dous as the moth­er, say­ing one thing, mean­ing some­thing dif­fer­ent. Thomas is best when play­ing the genial father, jok­ing with his neigh­bours and son.

Sup­port­ing char­ac­ters feel like they have a life out­side of the time they are on the stage they are pre­sent­ed so clear­ly.  Gavin Ruther­ford (as Dr Jim Bayliss) is weary; Christo­pher Brougham (as Frank Lubey) is peev­ish. Erin Banks (as Sue Bayliss) is won­der­ful­ly vicious; Lyn­d­sey Gar­ner (as Lydia Lubey) is light and viva­cious.  Beck Tay­lor (as Bert (a child, he alter­nates nights with Dino Karsani­dis)) is play­ful and hope­ful. Mar­tyn Wood (as George Deev­er) is by turns agi­tat­ed, resigned, won­der­ing. The play piv­ots on his char­ac­ter.

The oth­er ele­ments of the pro­duc­tion are also clear­ly pre­sent­ed. The set by John Hodgkins looks love­ly at first glance. A sec­ond glance notices the decay and empti­ness. Gareth Hobbs’ sound design sup­ports the dra­ma on stage as does Ulli Briese’s light­ing design. Paul Jen­den’s cos­tume design has bright fab­rics, with a sub­tle theme that indi­cates where the sto­ry is going.

Excel­lent. Rec­om­mend­ed.