TW: Suicide, Gunshot
SYNOPSIS
Chris has invited his late brother’s sweetheart back home with the intention of marrying her. The only problem is that a body was never found and after three years, his mother still believes that Larry is alive. To make matters worse, Ann’s father is currently in jail for sending the military faulty parts that resulted in the death of 21 pilots, something he blamed Chris’s father, Joe Keller, for. Joe denies all allegations and has lived in freedom and prosperity while Steve is withering away in prison. Kate, the mother, is certain that Ann is still waiting for Larry to return and is deeply hurt to find out that Ann has accepted his death, leaving it all but said that Ann is there to accept a proposal from the younger brother who found wealth after the war in his own right. Just before Chris and Ann declare their engagement there’s word that George, Ann’s lawyer brother, has visited their father in jail and is on his way to the house without explaining his urgency. George arrives in barely controlled anger arguing that Ann can’t marry Chris after Joe’s inaction led to their family being torn apart, but as soon as Kate enters the scene everything calms down. All would be fine except that Kate mentions how Joe has been healthy for the last fifteen years. The faulty parts only got sent out because Joe was miraculously home sick that day. This chips away at Chris’s faith in his father until they finally hash it out and Chris’s image of his father is ruined. The family waits for Chris’s return when Ann promises to forgive everything if Kate can accept Larry’s death and give them her blessing, but Kate feels like admitting Larry’s death would be admitting he was killed by his own father despite Larry never having flown the type of plane Joe made parts for. Ann reveals the letter Larry sent her just before his disappearance and reveals that Larry purposefully went off on a suicide mission over Joe’s involvement. The play ends with Joe claiming to go to get his keys to go for a drive. A single gunshot is heard and after checking on him, Chris re-enters the stage a sobbing mess.
CHARACTERS
Joe Keller – Nearing 60s, Heavy Man of Solid Build, Speaks and Listens with the Concentration of an Uneducated Man
Kate Keller – Early 50s, Uncontrolled Inspirations, Overwhelming Capacity for Love
Chris Keller – 32
Ann Deever – 26
George Deever – Late 20s, Pale Skinned, Greying Hair
Dr. Jim Bayliss – Nearing 40
Sue Bayliss – Rounding 40, Overweight
Frank Lubby – 32 but Balding
Lydia Lubey – 27, Robust and Laughing Girl
Bert - 8
POSSIBLE MONOLOGUES
Kate has an early monologue about how she dreamt about Larry and while half asleep ends up outside just in front of his memorial tree before it snaps from the storm.
Joe’s first monologue is about the day he was released and how his guts got him back on the neighbor’s good side. His second is painting the picture of how the faulty parts got shipped out and why Steve would’ve been motivated to lie, of course his defending Steve is entirely from the guilt of Joe being the one that told him to do it, but the audience doesn’t know this yet. Next Joe comes as close to admitting his guilt as he ever gets. He explains to Chris that scrapping 120 cracked heads would’ve put him out of business and left the family with nothing. The last monologue chastises Chris for not understanding that Joe was just playing the game of Capitalism. That if he deserves to go to jail then so does half the country.
Chris gets a monologue about what it was like during the war. He talks about how nearly all of his men died trying to protect each other and if they had only been more selfish a few of them would have still been alive. That experience changed Chris and returning home to everyone more or less unaffected makes him feel ashamed. If you don’t know that all the nice things came from the love soldiers had from each other, you might as well be using the loot that came from it; there’s blood on it.
George comes into the play late, but in the spirit of confrontation he has one good monologue full of emotional nuance. It’s a retelling of what happened when the faulty parts got sent out, Steve’s actual testimony of what happened. This retelling is full of pity and remorse, but mostly anger. Anger at himself for not believing his own father the last five years and anger at Joe for his deceit and ultimately anger at Chris. George thinks Chris knows that his father did Steve dirty.
PERSONAL THOUGHTS
I think All My Sons might be my favorite play from this time period. Right now, in 2021, I think its due for a revival. We have the negative impacts of Capitalism on the human conscience and touch on the horrors of war and how unaffected civilians are to the traumas and idealism drilled into servicemen. There’s even recurring scenes about horoscopes and using the stars that would definitely appeal to the current trend of spirituality and mysticism. Not to mention that this play inspired the name of the band 21 Pilots.
Throughout the play people talk about what they know every other page. It’s not about facts that they can prove without any deniability, but about their consciences and what they need to be true. Kate knows Larry’s alive because she needs him to be. Joe knows that nothing can break the bond between children and their fathers because that’s what he needs to be true. At the end of the day you can’t need something into existence, the truth that you need to hold onto means nothing to Absolute Truth. Unfortunately, we see what happens when someone’s personal truth is different from reality and adequate steps aren’t taken to process that trauma.
When the process is wrong the products end up with cracks and when those cracks are put under pressure they don’t hold up. All My Sons uses the literally process of making a cracked part to a P-40 and the resulting death of 21 pilots to mirror the broken process of supply and demand forcing people to crack and leading to unnecessary deaths.
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