'All My Sons’ director speaks at UNC

Wine tasting, quiche, hors d’oeuvres including spanakopita, a Greek spinach pastry and intimate live piano playing in a lobby.

This was the inviting atmosphere welcoming visitors to the Vision Series, a new program from PlayMakers Repertory Company.

This series invites all to come to the Paul Green Theatre in the Center for Dramatic Art to talk to directors about productions in progress while “enjoying flavors of the Triangle.”

Wednesday’s discussion, the third in the series, focused on “All My Sons,” a play written by renowned playwright Arthur Miller and directed by Davis McCallum.

The mainstage PlayMakers show opens on Jan. 27 and runs through Feb. 14.

The play, written and set in 1947, takes place in the backyard of a middle-class family in a middle-class American town in the postwar era.

“It is a blue-collar situation, but the stakes are high,” said McCallum, who said his approach as a director to this play came from the perspective of Greek tragedies.

“All My Sons” focuses on the Keller family and their two sons, who have gone to war. The play opens with one son still gone — his whereabouts unknown — and the other having returned home.

The stage, serving as the Kellers’ backyard, is covered in artificial turf, or AstroTurf, and offset by a black-and-white backdrop of a house with windows and yellow paneling.

The setting is meant to evoke a sense of everyday life in which the audience can see into these windows and feel as if they are walking down the neighborhood street.

Not only is it important for the stage to evoke the mood of the play, but everyone in the cast has to buy into the play as well, McCallum said. It is up to the actors to come together in a human way over common feelings and translate that from the stage to the audience.

“You have to start from you and imagine something else. That’s what drama does,” he said.

McCallum said he feels a deep connection to this play. He was familiar with the play before directing it, but he was still moved when rereading it in preparation.

McCallum said he performed in the play in college, but now, as a father, he sees it from a different perspective. He said the hairs stood up on his neck, which doesn’t happen too often to him.

Alexander and Carol Lawrence, who drove in from Cary to attend the event, have been subscribing to PlayMakers for 19 years.

Alexander Lawrence said they have attended the previous two Vision Series events also.

“It is a different perspective to start with the director telling you about the challenges of the play,” Carol Lawrence said.



Contact the Arts Editor at artsdesk@unc.edu.