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Apologies for equating Arthur Miller with a beer slogan, but CCSN turns his full-bodied All My Sons into a watered-down mug o' suds.
An unflinching indictment of post-WWII America, Sons should singe the conscience in its tale of the money-minded moral rot that unravels the Keller clan, headed by patriarch Joe, who knowingly peddled cracked cylinder heads from his factory as part of a military warplane contract, resulting in 21 pilot deaths, possibly including one of his sons, while dodging punishment as his ex-partner idles in jail. Examining putting one's own well-being—i.e., financial prosperity—above responsibility to others, it should X-ray the American dream to expose a nightmarish underbelly. But Jon Hennington's direction distracts and drains the play's tension, further undermined by Ken Kucan's leaden lead performance as Joe.
Many theatergoers will feel disengaged early, given Hennington's blocking of his actors. Staged to audiences on three sides, it mostly plays to the center. Left or right, expect a slew of backs and butts. The lethargic tone often feels like a careful script read-through, as if the entire enterprise is a glass-enclosed museum exhibit, rather than a timeless piece, especially relevant given current questions of wartime morality and profiteering. (As Joe insists in his desperate defense, "A man can't be a Jesus in this world. ... It's war and peace. It's nickels and dimes.")
Some good work is turned in by Joshuah Laird as the cheerily in-denial son who sadly comes to grasp his father's sins; Susan Lowe as the mother who can't accept her oldest boy's death; and Breon Jenay as the partner's daughter who links them all and holds the secret that brings tragic closure. But Kucan's juiceless Joe robs much of the taste from this brew.
In the theater, Miller Lite should never be on tap.