All My Sons Theater Review Essay

Darrian Miller
Danny Devlin
Theatre 106
8 December 2011

The second and best production that Ive attended was the production of All My Sons.   In all honesty, it will probably go down as top 3 of the best shows I have ever seen.   I liked the script and the storyline, and I believe the actors and actresses did an wonderful job at bringing the script to life. There were two characters who really caught my attention. Jake Smith, who played Joe Keller in the play, and Nathan Peterson, who played Chris Keller in the play.   I am writing this paper to critique their work.
I thought that Jake Smith produced exceptional work in his acting of Joe Keller.   I felt that the part of Joe Keller was very open and could be played with many options.   He wanted his friends and neighbors to believe he was still a perfect family man that has his life together with no guilt. Sadly, he was in a situation very different than that. His wife had been killing herself with grief aboout missing her son, Larry, and the fact that Joe’s mistake might have killed him.   His friends and neighbors all thought he lied and really sent out the faulty airplane parts. On top of that, he had wrongly sent his friend to jail. Jake Smith had to incorporate all of these emotions at once.   For many young actors, this would be an incredibly difficult task, but Smith handled it with ease.   He displayed someone who was a family man at heart and who would do almost anything for his family. Throughout the show, I believe people could tell that he was slowly breaking down. From the beginning of the production, the way he walked and talked changed. At the end of the show, we could tell that Joe was very tired from all the lies and guilt weighing him down.   I think that Jake did a wonderful job in this role. He made it his own performance and tried to bring the audience in with him.   Without the character Joe, the show would not have been the same.   If Jake would have decided to sit back and not put in the right...