So, I saw a couple of things last week but
nothing I felt particularly compelled
to make a video about, so this week I'm
doing something slightly different and
I'm looking at the work of Arthur Miller
and how he uses the past and the present
in his work. I might make some more
videos like this on weeks where I don't
necessarily go out to see stuff so, if
you do enjoy it, then please do let me
know down below or subscribe. But, here we
go...
Arthur Miller famously stated that the
structure of a play is always the
story of how the birds came home to roost.
I'd like to borrow for a moment Simon
Stephen's suggestion that every writer has
their own myth that emerges and
re-emerges throughout their work. And I'd
like to suggest that it is this inquiry
into the past invading the present that
is the myth of Arthur Miller's work. We
can see as much in Death of a Salesman
in which Schroeder suggests that 'unknown
to Willie, somewhere in his soul
searching he's a lost track of the
boundary between past and present'. As
Willie debates his actions in the
present, his brother Ben constantly
emerges and re-emerges from the ether,
reminding Willie of the divergent paths
he might have taken in his youth, the
ambitions he could have pursued. "Tell my
boys." "My boys, when I was 17 I walked
into the jungle. When I was 2, I walked out.
Haha, and by god I was rich!"
In this, we find a theatricalisation
of a character turning to their
past to inform the present. We might
point to Ibsen,
whose work was a huge influence on
Miller, as to the inspiration for this
myth. As David Edgar suggests, 'while the
plot of many Ibsen plays covers no
more than a couple of days, the story
starts years before'. The challenge then
comes in the synthesis of the two; drama
being composed of action, action being
something which takes place in the
present. It is this that, I think at least,
at which Miller is a master. The play in
which I think he particularly showcases
this ability to bring together past and
present is All My Sons. All My Sons,
generally, is one of my favorite plays as
much for the story which lies behind it
as the play itself. This was Arthur
Miller's last-ditch attempt to write a
really commercially successful Broadway
play after the failure of The Man Who
Had All the Luck and, if history had
taken a slightly different path, he was
prepared to give up the writing trade
all together. The story for All My Sons, then,
starts in very Ibsenite tradition
roughly a decade prior to the opening
curtain. There are two past events which
run throughout the core of this play;
Larry Keller one of the Keller family's
two sons has been missing since World
War Two: it's now the 1950s. Also pertinent
is the fact that Joe Keller, the father
of the family, was involved in a scandal
surrounding failing engine parts at the
factory which he owned. It's the
former that I'd like to focus on
primarily here however. The idea of the
past uncovered can be found in the very
first image we are presented with in All
My Sons; that of a tree which, having
been hit by a bolt of lightning the
night before, now lies snapped in two. As
we learn later this is Larry's tree, planted
when he first went missing. And its height represents the very
growth of tension which has existed in
this household as he's been missing,
every inch is a conflict unresolved.
Prior to Kate Keller, Larry's mother and
Joe's wife, discovering the tree, the
importance of its symbolism is constantly
reaffirmed by the neighbors of the
Kellers. "Hey, what happened to your tree?"
"Yeah, ain't that awful, the wind must have
got it last night." "So, it's funny but
Larry was born in August, he's have been 27 this month
and his tree blows down." "Oh, did the wind
get your tree?" "Yeah, last night." "Oh, what a
pity." "See what happened to the tree?" "Yeah."
"What's mother gonna say?" And it is
Kate herself, for whom the tree really
matters most, who underlines the
importance of its breakage. "Everything
decides to happen at the same time. This
month is his birthday, his tree blows
down, Annie comes. Everything that
happened seems to be coming back." If all the
breaking of the tree was to do, however,
was to reignite some reflection on
whether to accept the fact that Larry
might have passed away, then there would
be little exciting about the play at
all. The way in which the story in the
play takes place, then, presses play on a
number of disputes which have lain
paused in the time that Larry has been
missing. What truly reignites debate as
to whether to accept Larry's loss is the
arrival of Chris Keller, Larry's brother,
and Anne, Larry's former partner who is now
in love with Chris. This love triangle
places the past and present completely
at odds with one another.
For, faced with Chris and Anne's desire to
be married, Kate Keller now has to make a
bold decision between the past and the
present. She can continue to wallow in
her unrectified grief for her missing
son, there by disallowing the one who
stands there with her his happiness, or
she can choose to grant Chris, the living
son, his wish to be married to Anne which
in many ways would be akin to burying
Larry. It is the fact that here Miller not
only references the past but makes it an
active participant in the present action
of the play which truly expresses how
good at this he is. Even when compared to
Death of a Salesman, Willy's brother Ben
only ever appears as a reference to the
past, a remembrance of what could have been. In
All My Sons, the past is active, always
guiding the present. All My Sons asks
incredibly prescient, political questions
about financial profit and human loss
in an act of war. But, at the same time ,it
asks much more human questions of
determinacy. To what extent can we let
our past inform our future? To what
extent can we escape it? And to what extent
should we always be prepared to answer
for its crimes?
"She thinks he's coming back Chris. You
marry that girl, you're pronouncing him
dead." Thanks for watching. My name is
Tom. If you have enjoyed that and want to
see more videos about playwriting and
theatre in general then please do
subscribe. Let me know what you thought
down below. And cheers! Have a good week!