ALL MY SONS Reviews

[LimelightMike]

Posted: 10/16/08 at 2:00am

Today is Thursday, October 16, opening day of Arthur Miller's ALL MY SONS Wherein, we learn of a businessman's choice during wartime and how it affects his family and his community — and how it could have had national implication. All of this comes to light in the starry revival which officially opens Oct. 16 at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre.

For any and all attending and/or have access to what the papers are saying, please post 'em here. Break legs, all!

Best,
- Mike

Updated On: 10/16/08 at 02:00 AM

[beacon1]

Posted: 10/16/08 at 11:02am

Yes, please! I'm going next month and would love to read the reviews/press.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 10/16/08 at 1:04pm

I'm expecting very positive notices for this show. I was pleasantly surprised...I enjoyed the production quite a lot. Here's my three star review from last month: https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.cfm?thread=979611#3679265
Updated On: 10/16/08 at 01:04 PM

[JeaniusIsMe]

Posted: 10/16/08 at 1:36pm

I'm also interested in what the press will say.

I saw it a few weeks ago and wasn't all that impressed. Lithgow, Weist, and Wilson were wonderful, but Holmes fell flat. She overacted the hell out of it. And the concept left a bit to be desired- the overbearing music began to drive me crazy by the second half. While the opening tableau/welcome was a great idea, it just seemed to conceptually unravel from there.

[beacon1]

Posted: 10/16/08 at 1:52pm

NewYorkPress.Com reviews "All My Sons":

http://www.nypress.com/blogx/display_blog.cfm?bid=93970631

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 10/16/08 at 2:15pm

New York Press.com is Positive:

'...Brecht is known for his “alienation effect,” and in that sense, Holmes certainly keeps it all at mind’s length, estranged from McBurney’s eye-opening sojourn into the soul of American tragedy. Fortunately there are three majestic pillars—more if you count the phenomenal supporting cast—to prop it up.'

http://www.nypress.com/blogx/display_blog.cfm?bid=93970631

Updated On: 10/16/08 at 02:15 PM

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 10/16/08 at 2:21pm

Yeah, these people count.

[WickedOne2]

Posted: 10/16/08 at 3:03pm

I saw it last Friday and I thought Katie did a decent job. At times there was the idealistic Joey Potter emerging However, she was overshadowed by Patrick, John and Diane who give amazing performances.

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 10/16/08 at 6:47pm

Another odd duck review.

Fox News is a Rave (although nothing beyond the performances is discussed):

http://www.myfoxny.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail?contentId=7474897&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=1.1.1

[wonkit]

Posted: 10/16/08 at 6:57pm

This is a September video.

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 10/16/08 at 7:24pm

The Associated Press is a Pan:

'It's not about Katie Holmes. Or even John Lithgow, Dianne Wiest or Patrick Wilson, for that matter.

The real star of Broadway's chilly, high-concept revival of "All My Sons" is Simon McBurney. He won't for a minute let you forget he is the director of Arthur Miller's post-World War II morality play, which opened Thursday at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre.

McBurney's vision is grandiose, almost operatic in nature, in which he uses, among other things, a large supporting cast as a kind of accusatory Greek chorus, dramatic lighting, portentous musical underscoring and mostly black-and-white film clips to weigh down the evening with an excess of theatrics...'

http://www.wtop.com/?nid=114&sid=1498701

Updated On: 10/16/08 at 07:24 PM

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 10/16/08 at 7:27pm

Variety is Very Positive:

'While this is very much a naturalistic American drama in the mid-20th century mold, Miller made no secret of his Greco-Ibsen influences. McBurney acknowledges those diverse traditions as well as more experimental forms. He shows us the tricks and mechanics of theater, uses film devices like underscoring and projections to intensify drama or foster evocative connections, and coaxes layered interpretations from the actors that embrace grandiose, melodramatic theatricality on the surface while scratching away underneath to uncover the characters' wounded humanity in painfully real terms.

There's no playing it safe here on any level, yet the complex approach feels organic -- every unconventional touch serves to break open the drama, not simply to embellish it. Some no doubt will find the treatment overwrought, but like it or not, this is far more interesting than another reverential remount.'

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117938725.html?categoryid=33&cs=1

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 10/16/08 at 8:15pm

USA Today gives the show 2 1/2 Stars out of 4:

'Ever since word got out that Katie Holmes would appear in a revival of All My Sons (**½ out of four), the blogosphere has been buzzing. Celebrity junkies who probably haven't thought about Arthur Miller since reading the CliffsNotes for Death of a Salesman in high school are dying to know how Mrs. Tom Cruise will fare in her Broadway debut.

So let's get this out of the way: In Sons, which opened Thursday at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, Holmes does not a) forget her lines, b) get naked (as the last Mrs. Cruise did in her Broadway debut), c) look fat in her costumes or d) toss out non sequiturs that seem like references to Scientology...'

http://www.usatoday.com/life/theater/reviews/2008-10-16-all-my-sons-to-be_N.htm

[scaryclowns223]

Posted: 10/16/08 at 8:36pm

Word of Mouth is a flat out RAVE:

http://www.broadway.com/All-My-Sons/broadway_reviews/5013193

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 10/16/08 at 8:39pm

Yep, Word of Mouth is a Rave (although they also don't mention the directorial touches):

MARK: "I would tell my friends to run to see it, not to walk..."

DEANNA: "It's definitley a show that makes you think... and I think that's just as great as seeing some happy musical."

DEBBI: "It's worth it, I would recommend it."

http://www.broadway.com/All-My-Sons/broadway_reviews/5013193

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 10/16/08 at 9:53pm

The Wall Street Journal is Very Negative:

'...I assume that Mr. McBurney is also responsible for some of the production's cartoonishly exaggerated acting -- he goes in for caricature, especially when portraying small-town Americans -- and I further suspect that he encouraged both Mr. Lithgow and Dianne Wiest to overact in the first half of the play. Both of them find their footing in the last act, though, giving imposing performances that are more believable than the postmodern hubbub surrounding them, while Patrick Wilson, who plays Mr. Lithgow's surviving son, is at all times a rock of dramatic plausibility.

The presence in the cast of Mrs. Tom Cruise is doubtless responsible for the fact that "All My Sons" is currently the highest-grossing play on Broadway. Those who go to see it on her account, however, are in for a sad surprise. Like most of the pretty young screen things who have made Broadway debuts in recent seasons, Ms. Holmes is a creature of the camera who doesn't know the first thing about stage acting. Anyone misguided enough to make her professional stage debut on Broadway opposite Mr. Lithgow and Ms. Wiest in an Arthur Miller play is, of course, asking for trouble, and Ms. Holmes gets it in spades: Unable to fill a large theater with the sound of her voice, she is reduced to dull ranting. Perhaps she might have come off better in a different show, but in this one she looks like a well-meaning amateur.'

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122420282846543063.html

[scaryclowns223]

Posted: 10/16/08 at 9:56pm

These are unusually polarized reviews.

Wow.

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 10/16/08 at 10:08pm

Talkin' Broadway is Very Negative (and Murray even manages to sneak in his requisite bashing of John Doyle):

'...Unfortunately, McBurney's innovations don't draw us closer to these people - they push us away. Lithgow's opening speech invokes the play as an abstract object lesson, not an exploration of the ways that guilt and grief may intermingle. Projections (by Finn Ross for Mesmer) expand brief snatches of recollection into stage-filling cinematics, redirecting your focus from the words to the visuals; soupy underscoring (from sound designers Christopher Shutt and Carolyn Downing) gives even the soberest moments an unavoidable, filmic hokeyness. Even the ultraminimalist set (by Tom Pye, also the costume designer) looks to have been composed of remnants from the most recent revival of Our Town.

Worse yet, the performers have been directed to look at each other as little as possible, and look at us as much as possible. While this is ostensibly to highlight their isolation from each other, it does little more than isolate them from us, destroying Miller's vision of everyone being a part of the human family. We are not all a part of the same John Doyle musical...'

http://www.talkinbroadway.com/world/AllMySons2008.html

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 10/16/08 at 10:11pm

The only review that counts isn't posted yet.

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 10/16/08 at 10:22pm

Ben Brantley at the New York Times is Very Negative:

'...Finding a stylized acting approach that matches the dark-gray atmosphere isn’t easy, and few of the cast members succeed. Most of them appear to have been encouraged to go for the sinister, whether the scene asks for it or not. Damian Young, as the Kellers’ neighbor, a disenchanted doctor, and Christian Camargo, as Ann’s angry brother, deliver their big monologues with the half-mad intensity of supporting players in a Vincent Price movie.

Ms. Wiest assumes a glazed demeanor and reproachful stare, becoming Joe’s conscience incarnate or a Cassandra according to Norman Rockwell. (She drops her g’s, Sarah Palin style, to convey Kate’s hometown folksiness.) And while Ann is supposed to arrive at the Keller household with high hopes and good intentions, Ms. Holmes delivers most of her lines with meaningful asperity, italicizing every word. This Ann is straight from the school of the Erinyes (those avenging furies from Greek mythology), and I didn’t believe for a second that she really loved the honorable, naïve Chris.

Mr. Wilson and Mr. Lithgow, actors of strong and confident naturalism, come off better, especially in their scenes with each other. In Joe and Chris’s big Oedipal showdown in the second act, these actors powerfully evoke those painful moments when a family quarrel can feel like an earthquake.

It’s the only scene where Mr. McBurney’s shaping concept feels fully justified, where you see how the production might have worked. Mostly this vaunting interpretation falls into that same limbo between intention and execution where so many of Miller’s baffled American souls find themselves.'

http://theater2.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/theater/reviews/17sons.html

Updated On: 10/16/08 at 10:22 PM

[being.jeremiah]

Posted: 10/16/08 at 10:23pm

Opening night arrivals and curtain call pictures can now be viewed on gettyimages.com.

[beacon1]

Posted: 10/16/08 at 10:28pm

TheaterMania's review:

http://www.theatermania.com/content/news.cfm/story/15805

"Breathtaking performances by John Lithgow, Dianne Wiest, Patrick Wilson, and, yes, Katie Holmes in the revival of Arthur Miller's profoundly moving 1947 play All My Sons instantly tag the production at the Gerald Schoenfeld as an absolute must-see."

This one says that the actors have great physical contact/connection to each other--in contrast to the talkinbroadway review...

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 10/16/08 at 10:29pm

The Daily News gives the show 4 Stars out of 5:

'...Holmes, a TV and film vet, makes a fine Broadway debut. Her rather grand speech pattern takes getting used to, but she seems comfortable and adds a fitting glint of glamour. Dancing with Lithgow, kissing Wilson, she makes you forget about her being Mrs. Tom Cruise. At times, however, Holmes is strangely shrill. The same holds true for actors playing the Kellers' neighbors, who boil when they should simmer.

While always arresting, the underscoring and other theatrical fireworks yield diminishing returns. The final 20 minutes of "All My Sons" are as powerful and plain-spoken as dramas get, and adornment seems superfluous. It's a testament to Miller that his play's themes of war and responsibility still resonate today.'

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/arts/2008/10/16/2008-10-16_katie_holmes_adds_glamour_to_broadway_in.html

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 10/16/08 at 10:31pm

TheaterMania is a Rave:

http://www.theatermania.com/content/news.cfm/story/15805

[Ed_Mottershead]

Posted: 10/16/08 at 10:33pm

Brantley seems to be in high dudgeon
on this one. I saw it last week and, when it came down to the brass tacks of the play, the actors soared. I hope Brantley takes that into account, even if decryihg some of the production elements and director's choices.