'Sons' makes a gratifying double dose of Miller

TAMPA - It's a rare, perhaps unprecedented coincidence for Tampa theatergoers: Two plays by Arthur Miller, arguably the greatest American playwright, are being staged by different companies at the same time.

Acorn Theater kicked off its inaugural season with a Miller masterpiece, Death of a Salesman, a couple of weeks ago at Hillsborough Community College in Ybor City. It continues through this weekend.

Then last week, Stageworks opened its staging of All My Sons, the play that first established Miller as a major force in American theater.

The Stageworks production is impressive even before the first word is spoken. The set, a realistic exterior and back yard of a Midwestern home, by R.T. Williams is stunning, especially in the context of the intimate Shimberg Playhouse.

Director Anna Brennen starts the proceedings with light but somewhat unsettling laughter coming from behind the audience. Together with the set, the effects impart a feeling that the audience is hiding in the bushes, with a chance to spy on a prototypical American neighborhood and see what goes on when people think no one is watching.

It's just after World War II, and the Keller family, in whose back yard we are seated, has lost a son in battle. He's actually missing in action, but it has been years since he was seen. Father Joe and brother Chris realize he's dead; mother Kate, despite a complete lack of evidence, is able to delude herself into thinking that her son is still alive somewhere.

Her denial seems at first to be the focus of the play, but it's just foreshadowing of the deep and complex pretense, rationalization and denial in which the idyllic family and neighborhood live out their lives.

The play is superbly compelling on its own, but it is also interesting juxtaposed with Death of a Salesman. It explores the same themes, most notably the human capacity for self-deception and the soullessness of the American Dream, and offers characters with obvious comparisons to the Loman family.

Death of a Salesman may be more dramatically complex, but All My Sons has a powerful political context about the profit and greed that underlie war. Parallels with corporate connections to the war in Iraq are inescapable.

A fine cast, led by Steven Clark Pachosa and Eileen Koteles as Joe and Kate, bring real life to Miller's words. Pachosa is especially impressive, making his ultimately unlikable character charismatic and engaging. Kelly Sardinas Lambert is aptly sunny as the dead son's former fiancee, and many of the actors in small roles add color to the interpretation of the play.

The only weakness in the whole production is Kevin Whalin as Chris. It's a difficult role: Chris is supposed to be kind of bland, a backdrop against which the horrors of the other characters are projected. But Whalin never seems to plumb the subtle depths of the character, and doesn't change mood or expression even after the shattering epiphany at the play's end.

All My Sons runs through Sept. 19 at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center's Shimberg Playhouse. Curtain is at 8 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday and 4 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $16.50 and $22.50 plus service charge. Call (813) 229-7827 or go to tbpac.org.

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