I feel like I’ve been having an affair. After years of blind devotion to my true love, my eyes started to wander. It’s not like I was bored or in need of something new, but I just stumbled upon it – and ever since, I’ve been unable to put it out of my mind. I keep telling myself it’s ok, because I haven’t been dividing my attention or neglecting any of my duties. Also, I don’t think going to a play instead of a reading a book actually counts as cheating, for both are considered literature. Still, watching a recording of Arthur Miller’s play All My Sons has allowed me to experience something so completely new and exciting that it might have changed my life. Want to know why? Read on!
Arthur Miller’s 1946 play All My Sons, directed by Ivo van Hove and starring Bryan Cranston and Marianne Jean-Baptiste, started with a tree falling and a woman trying to prevent it from doing so. Then the curtain went down and up and the play truly began: Joe Keller, a businessman sits on the fallen tree and reads the news. We then find out that his oldest son Larry went missing during the war and is presumed dead, that his wife Kate is still denial about this, that he was almost convicted of selling faulty aircraft engines and that his partner really was, that his youngest son Chris suffers from survivor’s guilt and wants to marry Ann, his older brother’s former fiancée. So, what would happen next? I desperately wanted to find out.
I have always loved books and can spend hours just sitting on my couch or lying on my bed because I wanted to reach the conclusion of a wonderful story. This, however, was different. Something new and exciting was happening to me. I felt it all over my body: a heightened focus, a faster heart rate, an inability to look away. It felt bigger, more exciting, more urgent, in a way, than what I’d known from books. The play was only a couple of minutes in, and I was aware it wouldn’t last that long.
It was love at first sight, and I was falling hard. It was fast-paced, it was all dialogue, it was clever and it was subtle. I couldn’t stop watching, and I wanted to know what had truly happened in the war, what part Joe had played in it, and why everyone was so unhappy all the time, and why they were trying so hard pretending to be fine.
When we’re in love, we tend to see only the best things in people. I saw Joe was hiding something from his awkward laugh, I realised Kate knew more than she let on because of the things she didn’t quite say. I was aware of Chris’s too-big smile, which meant something must be the matter. I knew they weren’t perfect, but I still I was convinced that they were trying their best, and that they were good people. They had done the things they’d done because they were scared, because they were afraid to disappoint their loved ones, because American society demanded it from them, because they needed money, and because they’d told themselves this was their only option. They couldn’t help it.
This must be what it’s like, I thought, to meet someone new, to want learn all about them, to want to know more and more, to get sucked in, and to tell yourself you can somehow look through them and to be the only person in the world who truly understands them. You know that you’ve got something really special going on. Everyone has their flaws, but somehow you tell yourself this doesn’t matter, because you are convinced you can fix them. Until you realise that you can’t, and that nobody possibly could.
Until everything changes. Eventually, you’re bound to find out things you wish I you didn’t know. It turned out that Joe had done something so disastrous that it affected everyone involved, and he never truly took responsibility for it, until he couldn’t run away from it any longer. During the last twenty minutes of the play, after I’d felt elation, happiness, giddiness even, and compassion, I experienced shock, sadness, disappointment, anger, and, again, compassion. As in a love affair turned sour, everything had come crashing down. We finally find out what had happened to Larry, and why. Kate had known all along, Chris only pretended he hadn’t. Joe couldn’t escape his responsibilities anymore and did the only thing he could think of. And that’s how it ends, and that’s how my hopeful heart was broken, after only two hours and fifteen minutes. Affairs never last very long, do they?
The play was over, and I felt unable to speak. I think I must have been quiet for at least ten minutes, and my boyfriend sitting next to me was equally unable to put his feelings into words. Sitting on that cinema chair, I felt as though something inside of me had born and died soon after. It felt as though watching this play, so very much like meeting someone new, had introduced me to a part of me I had never known existed. I felt more aware of my emotions, the good ones and the bad, and I knew something inside of me had shifted.
We walked away, still silent, and found a spot in the pub near the window. I quietly ordered two gin and tonics, put them down in front of us, and we looked at each other. Wow, he sighed, what a ride that was. I said I agreed. We were happy and we were sad. This, I claimed, is why literature matters, whether it’s novels or poetry or, of course, theatre. They tell us what it’s like to be human. Even though Miller wrote his play in 1946, it might be even more relevant than ever before.
It’s been several weeks since I saw All My Sons. Saw it twice, in fact. I still love it and I still hate it, and I’m still confused about everything. What was it about this play that made me feel so much, more even than in any book I’ve ever read? I haven’t thought of anything else, I’ve dreamt about it, and I’ve talked about to everyone about just how perfect it was.
I’m so sorry, my dear books, but I’ve met someone.
What do you think of All My Sons? Have you seen any other Arthur Miller plays? Do you ever go to the theatre? Do you think you can fall in love with a play, or a novel, or any work of art? Please let me know in the comments! Also, don’t forget to follow me for more book-related posts!
The Open Book 