To make Keller have a likeable appearance, I think that the actor who plays Keller should be a stocky man with a smile always on his face. The stockiness would show that Keller has led an enjoyable life and has been successful as he has been able to feed himself well. The smile would show that he is innocent and a friendly person. The clothes that he wears could also show what Keller is like. A plain white shirt could illustrate to the audience that Keller has led a simple life. A pair of fading, blue jeans may well represent that Keller’s time is nearly over as his life ends at the end of the day. I believe that Keller’s speech should be quite different to all the other actors.
“When he reads, when he speaks, when he listens, it is with the terrible concentration of the uneducated man for whom there is still wonder in many commonly known things.”
This shows that Keller isn’t very educated and has to think about even simple things. I think that having Keller speak differently could portray this. After every sentence that Keller says, he would take a longer breath than other actors. During this pause Keller’s simplicity could be emphasised by having Keller squint when he looks around to make him look that he really has to concentrate.
Kate Keller is in her early fifties and is a key character in my play. She is the one that truly believes that her youngest son, Larry, is still alive.
Her love towards her family is unquestionable and it is this love that puts her in denial, makes her head ache and cause her to become a neurotic. After three years of being missing, Kate still argues that her son is still alive.
“Only last week a man turned up in Detroit, missing longer than Larry.”
Kate blanks out all of common sense to believe that Larry is alive.
Whenever a person talks about Larry as if he is dead, Kate suddenly gets a headache or makes some tea so that they see she is uncomfortable. She perseveres to keep him alive and does anything such as look to the stars to make sure that everyone will believe that Larry isn’t dead.
“Your brother’s alive, darling, because if he’s dead, your father killed him.”
The reason she acts the way she does about Larry is because of a secret that she knows. Kate is a woman of enormous maternal love, which extends to her neighbours' children, notably George. Despite her instinctive warmth, she is capable of supporting Joe in his deceit. To believe Larry is dead would be to believe his death was a punishment of Joe's crime (an intolerable thought), as she believes it would be wrong.
“God does not let a son be killed by his father.”
So she must persuade herself that Larry still lives. Joe sees this idea to be ridiculous, but must tolerate it to secure Kate's support for his own deception.
I think Kate’s loyalty to Keller could be shown successfully through Kate’s body language towards Keller. When Keller and Kate are talking to someone, Keller can sit in a chair and Kate could have a hand on his shoulder to show that she will always be with him, even if he has done some awful things. I feel that Kate is the kind of person who insists on perfection. This is because Kate is always expecting Larry home and wants him to come back to perfect conditions. This sense of tidiness could be reflected on Kate’s appearance. She could wear a sensible dress without any creases and having her hair in a faultless bob. Also, whenever anyone enters the stage, Kate can look to him or her in hope that they will be Larry and then she can sigh. This would show how much Kate wants Larry back.
Chris Keller has been changed by his experience of war, where he has seen men laying down their lives for their country. He is angry that the world has not been changed, that the selflessness of his fellow soldiers counts for nothing. He feels guilty to make money out of a business, which does not value the men whose worthy actions it relied on. Chris is a completely contrasting character compared to his father, Keller. Their morals are totally different and I think Chris represents my principles the best.
“…that’s the kind of guys I had. They didn’t die; they killed themselves for each other. I mean that exactly; a little more selfish and they’d’ve been here today.”
Chris believes that every man owes something to society, for these innocent men who gave their lives in the war. He feels guilty to have nice things because he knows that a man died so that you could have it. Chris loves his parents and wants to be a good son, but now he wants to live. He is in love with Ann, his brother’s ex girlfriend. First he felt guilty to be in love with her, because if his brother hadn’t of died in the war then she wouldn’t be available, but now Chris realises he loves Ann very much. Keller is happy for them both as long as Chris takes the business from him as that is all he has worked for during his life. Kate thinks the idea is very wrong, as she still believes that Larry is going to come back. Chris wants Keller to make Kate get used to the idea that him and Ann are in love, or he will leave the business and move with Ann to New York and start a new life. I want people to respect Chris for having good morals, so he should wear smart clothes, which the audience will like. When Chris, walks around the stage, I want him to go right to the edges, to show that to him, the world is more than his forty foot garden.
Ann Deever shares Chris's ideas about more social responsibility but believes he should not feel ashamed by his wealth. She believes Keller’s father had nothing to do with the killing of the airmen, so she finds nothing wrong with Chris inheriting the business and the money. She disowns her father whom she thinks is guilty. Unlike Kate, Ann is not waiting for Larry, her ex boyfriend to come back from the war, as she knows he is dead. Now she is in love with Chris, Kate’s other son, and wants to marry him. She has no bad feelings about marrying the brother of her dead ex boyfriend. Kate counters the idea that Chris and Ann would marry, as she still believes that Ann is still “Larry’s Girl”. Kate tries to convince Ann that Larry is going to come back, but Ann is deeply in love with Chris. Ann has no wish to hurt Kate, as they have known each other since Ann was born, but she will show her Larry's letter if Kate remains opposed to Ann's marrying Chris.
“I’m not trying to hurt you, Kate. You’re making me do this, now remember you’re – Remember.”
On stage, I would like Ann to be very pretty and have a really short, beautiful dress, which shows off her legs for the Keller’s to comment on.
“You got nice legs, Annie!”
George Deever is a soul mate of Chris. When younger, he greatly admired him. He believed that his father, Steve is guilty of murder, but now after talking with his dad, he now understands that it was Keller who is really to blame. Now he reproaches the Keller family to find out the truth. When he enters the Keller’s garden, he refuses Ann to marry Chris, the son of the man who sent his own father to jail. When Kate enters, George tries to stay calm as he loves Kate as she had been like a mother to him during his childhood. He agrees with Kate that Ann should leave but for very different reasons. George has grown bitter because in life he has sacrificed his own happiness for the happiness of others, such as giving up Lydia to fight in the war. I think on stage, George should wear a business suit with a bowler hat.
Dr. Jim Bayliss is a man who, in his youth, shared Chris's ideas, but has been forced to compromise to look after his wife’s needs. He is fair to his wife, but wants to make the world a better place. His wife thinks this is fine as long as it’s paying the bills.
“It seems to me that for ten dollars you could hold his hand.”
If any characters speak for me, it is Jim and Chris, because they believe in all my morals.
Sue Bayliss is an utterly cynical woman. Believing Joe has “pulled a fast one”, she does not mind his awful crime, yet she dislikes Chris because his idealism, which she calls “phoney”, makes Jim feel restless. She is an embittered, rather grasping woman, whose ambitions are material wealth and social acceptance. She does not at all understand the moral values which her husband shares with Chris.
Lydia Lubey is a one-dimensional character, she is chiefly in the play to show what George and Chris (so far) have gone without. She is simple, warm and affectionate, rather a stereotype of femininity (she is confused by electrical appliances). Her meeting with George is painful to observe: she has the happy home life, which he has forfeited. We understand why George declines her well-meant invitation to see her babies.
Frank Lubey (unlike George, Larry, Chris and Jim) is a materialist. He lacks culture, education and real intelligence, but has made money in business, and has courted Lydia while the slightly younger men were fighting in the war. His dealings with astrology and horoscopes lends support to Kate's wild belief that Larry is still alive.
In my play, there are no insignificant scenes in my play.
The first scene is very important as it introduces the importance of the tree to the audience and it is the tree that starts off the conversation between Keller and Frank, Keller’s son Larry. The audience need to know that this tree was planted specially for Larry. The play also gives the audience a taste of what the characters are like, e.g. Frank Lubey believes in astrology.
The next important scene is when Keller and Bert are talking. It shows that Keller clearly doesn’t feel guilty about jail as he talks about them to Bert really freely.
“Bert, on my word of honour there’s a jail in the basement.”
Another important scene is when Keller talks to Chris and Ann about Steve Deever. I wanted to make Keller talk in a style in which he was actually talking about himself.
“You mustn’t feel that away about him. You understand me? It ain’t right.”
Keller was trying to make Steve into a nicer person because he knew that what Ann felt about her father, was actually what she thought of Keller, even though she didn’t know it. This is the most important scene in the book I believe. This is the scene, where if Keller’s body language isn’t right, he can give away his whole story. He should be perspiring, but only so much that suspicion starts to arouse in Ann’s mind, “[She regards him a moment]: Joe, lets forget it.” Chris and Ann have already told Keller to stop talking about Steve but he carries on. He’s so guilty. He doesn’t want Ann to hate him. In fact the speech is much towards his son, Chris as well as Ann. If Ann hates her own father so much for committing a crime, how much will Chris hate him for committing a crime and lying about it?
There are some lines in my play, which have to be said in a special way to give maximum effect upon the audience.
“Be smart now, Joe. The boy is coming. Be smart.”
This line is important because Kate is trying to tell Keller that George is coming back so he needs to be careful as they don’t know what he’s going to do. Keller should become more nervous because he knows that his secret might come out but his head show go up and he should have an aggressive look on his face to show that he’s got nothing to hide and he will challenge anyone that thinks he is guilty.
Another important line is when Kate goes:
“You don’t realize how people can hate, Chris, they can hate so much they’ll tear the world to pieces.”
This line is trying to say that George might hate Chris so much, even though they were childhood buddies. Kate should be nodding her head at Chris because he is going to marry Ann and she knows this is wrong.
This is how I described the stage of “All My Sons”:
“The stage is hedged on right and left by tall, closely planted poplars which lend the yard a secluded atmosphere.”
This is necessary to show to the audience, that Keller’s world has a forty-foot front. The trees close of the rest of the world around him as they are so close together.
“In the left corner, downstage, stands the four-foot high stump of a slender apple-tree whose upper trunk and branches lie toppled beside it, fruit still clinging to its branches.”
The broken tree is necessary to show that Larry may still be alive. It is for the Keller’s to remember Larry.
The garden chairs scattered around are important to show that there has been a great storm the night before and the mess shows the power of it. It is like an omen to Kate and Frank that it wasn’t right to plant a memorial tree for Larry as he wasn’t dead.
This stage is good as it shows the unity of place, you don’t need to go to a different place as everything can take place in the garden.
I think appropriate music should be used for each scene to reflect the atmosphere. Perhaps a drum beating when Kate makes a mistake and tells George that Keller has never been sick, the drum could represent tension rising in the play and Keller’s racing heart beat when he realises he might get caught out. The light should get slightly dimmer to show that the day is going on and the night is going to arrive. The grape drink is important in the play as it shows how Kate and George were really close during his childhood.
‘All My Sons’ is a reflection of real life of the American Middle Class and because of the reality of the play, there are a number of messages that will be communicated to the audience to make the play more effective. When the audience leave the theatre, I want them to reflect on what they have seen and compare their values with Keller’s. When Keller sent off the detective plane parts to the army, I want the audience to question was he right to do as he was keeping the interests of his family in mind or was he wrong to do such a horrific thing as he was simply leading innocent men to their deaths. It will affect the audience greatly as they will probably also be middle class people like the characters on stage.
Yours Faithfully
Arthur Miller
