Review: Bryan Cranston is superbly seditious in All My Sons

Bryan Cranston is one of those actors who was around for years before relatively late in life becoming a star largely as a result of a television series – in his case, Breaking Bad. He is also a proper stage actor and in Ivan Van Hove’s production of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons he is on admirable form as the ruthless American industrialist Joe Keller.

It’s the second collaboration of the actor and director after Network at the National Theatre and the pair clearly like to put on work that has something to say for itself. Miller’s play is an indictment of capitalism and the American dream, with Keller nodding through some faulty aircraft parts that, while they kept his factory going and in profit, resulted in the deaths of a number of pilots, including – albeit indirectly – one of his own sons.

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It helps that Cranston carries about him a natural authority and gravitas – he looks like a cross between the older President Bush and Jack Lemmon – and this makes his disintegration as he comes to terms with what he has done all the more mesmerising. At a time when America is struggling to retain its identity and values under Donald Trump, Cranston’s is in a very real way a seditious performance: he is using his own Americanness to expose its weaknesses.

Van Hove likes to ring the changes even on the classics, and his big idea for this one is to have a tree fall down in the opening scene – a symbol presumably of decaying old structures. It means the actors are stuck with having to negotiate their ways around it for the rest of the performance, which in all honesty is mildly irritating.

Still, this is such a strong ensemble it doesn’t ultimately matter. Marianne Jean-Baptiste is immensely moving as Keller’s wife, who can’t come to terms with the death of their son, and Paapa Essiedu is customarily brilliant as his living son, who alone is focusing on the future. This is magnificent theatre, magnificently acted.

All My Sons is at Wyndham’s Theatre, London, until March 7