Backstage with Sandy Kenyon: 'All My Sons' on Broadway
MIDTOWN, Manhattan (WABC) -- Arthur Miller may be best known for "Death of a Salesman" and "The Crucible," but the playwright first found fame with "All My Sons."
A new revival at the American Airlines Theatre stars Tracy Letts and Annette Bening, who is nominated for a Tony Award for the second time in her first Broadway role in more than 30 years.
"I wanted to wait until my kids were bigger," the four-time Academy Award nominee said. "I have four kids, and my youngest just went away to college. And then this literally appeared like a magic trick in front of me."
Bening was nominated for the 1987 Tony for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her Broadway debut in "Coastal Disturbances," but she calls her part in "All My Sons" a dream role.
"I thought, are you kidding?" she said. "'All My Sons,' which is one of the few plays that I think I would have truly been disappointed if I never got to do."
Bening stars as a mother who comes to realize her husband, played by Letts, made money by cutting corners manufacturing airplane parts -- and men have died as a result.
"It's important because it's a play about responsibility, of taking responsibility," she said. "It's a play about denial and guilt, and many questions about, do we pay a price if we've been untruthful?"
The play was first staged in the aftermath of World War II, but the cast and crew believe it has great relevance today.
"How far does our responsibility extend?" Letts said. "Are we responsible at all for our community, for the world? It poses that question, and it seems like it's an essential time to ask that question in 2019."
And there are several characteristics that relate this show to the current climate.
"Honesty and truth, both of which are at peril," director Jack O'Brien said. "This is a play where the chickens come home to roost. And they are our chickens. So we're responsible."
The play is also nominated in the Best Revival of a Play category, and Benjamin Walker is nominated for Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play.
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