aixcentric

At a time of flux and fakery when lies masquerade as truth, we find reassurance in Miller’s moral rigour.. The play focuses on Joe Keller, a thriving businessman who escaped a wartime charge of issuing defective cylinder heads to combat planes by letting his partner take the rap. Exonerated but hardly guilt-free, Joe is suddenly confronted by the consequences of his actions. His wife, Kate, is obstinately convinced that their son, Larry, missing in action, is still alive. And when their other son, Chris, decides to marry Larry’s fiancee, Joe and Kate realise that the pretences by which they have lived are destined to be exposed.

Miller’s morality is accompanied by psychological insights that Herrin’s production largely captures. Pullman, with his granite profile and spiky hair, lacks the backslapping bonhomie that David Suchet brought to Joe in the last West End revival, but he is excellent at conveying the character’s strenuous self-justification.

Field, meanwhile, is superb as Kate. She combines an innate warmth with a nervy anxiety suggested by the way she encases herself in her cardigan as if it were a protective shield. It has been argued that Kate is the “villain” of the piece in that she puts the sanctity of the home before ethics, but Field endows the character with an essential myopic innocence.