Back Alley Productions will perform All My Sons at the Colonnade Sept. 11-19.
Back Alley Productions will perform All My Sons at the Colonnade Sept. 11-19.
Back Alley Productions will perform All My Sons at the Colonnade Sept. 11-19.
Award-winning theater company Back Alley Productions will bring Arthur Miller's classic drama All My Sons to the Colonnade stage, at 264 Catoosa Cir. in Ringgold. Performances will be held at 7:30 p.m. on Sept. 11, 12, 18 and 19. There will also be a 1 p.m. matinee on Sept. 19.
The show is produced by special arrangement with the Dramatic Publishing Company of Woodstock, Ill. The production, which secured Mr. Miller as a preeminent Broadway playwright and earned him his first Tony Award, is inspired by actual historical events during World War II.
Review for All My Sons:
All My Sons is set in a small corner of the midwest just after the horrors of the war. The play follows the Keller family — parents Joe and Kate and their son Chris — who are coping with or in denial over the loss of another son, Larry, who went missing during the war and is presumed dead in a way that offers no closure to the grieving family.
Joe Keller, the father of the family, is equally haunted by his troubled business, which produced airplane parts for the war effort. When some defective products were shipped out — ultimately causing the accidental deaths of several pilots — Steve Deever, Joe's business partner, was found guilty at trial and went to prison. Joe went free, but many people still suspect his involvement in the negligence.
“Arthur Miller uses this intimate backdrop to ask broad social questions,” Zack Jordan, director of the show, explains. “On a small scale, the play studies two parents at different stages of acceptance, dealing with the loss of their son during the war. Their surviving son, Chris, deals with his own loss of innocence as he questions why the world around him seems so unchanged after the brutality he witnessed while serving in the war himself. On a larger scale, it shows how small actions can paint larger events, for better or worse, and raises issues of social responsibility.”
Joe’s troubled past remains dormant for many years, but when Chris invites Ann - Steve Deever's daughter - to town with the intent of proposing marriage, both families are forced to confront the irreconcilable.
“Miller does an exceptional job of asking the audience to put themselves in the shoes of his characters,” Mr. Jordan adds. “What lies do we tell in our present to remask the past? What lies do we tell to others or even to ourselves to survive? Chris, who is being groomed to take over his father’s troubled factory, presents himself as an idealist who wants the world to be a better place. But willfully ignores or doesn't fully consider that his father may be guilty for serious crimes.”
Due to language and dark thematic subject matter, parents are asked to use discretion when bringing younger children to the show. For more information, visit backalleyproductions.org. For online ticket purchase, visit http://colonnadecenter.tix.com. For questions, call 706.935-9000.