All My Sons

By Arthur Miller

Celebrating the Arthur Miller centennial year, an eye-catching new Penguin Plays edition of the work that established him as a leading voice in the American theater
 
In 1947, Arthur Miller exploded onto Broadway with his first major work, All My Sons, winning both the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best New Play and the Tony for Best Author. The play introduced themes that would preoccupy Miller throughout his career: the relationships between fathers and sons and the conflict between business and personal ethics. This striking new edition adds All My Sons to the elegant Penguin Plays series—now in beautifully redesigned covers.
 
Joe Keller and Steve Deever, partners in a machine shop during World War II, turned out defective airplane parts, causing the deaths of many men. Deever was sent to prison while Keller escaped punishment and went back to business, making himself very wealthy in the ensuing years. A love affair between Keller’s son, Chris, and Ann Deever, Steve’s daughter; the bitterness of George Deever, who returns from the war to find his father in prison and his father’s partner free; and the reaction of Chris Keller to his father’s guilt escalate toward a climax of electrifying intensity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Release date: Jun 14, 2016
• ISBN: 9781101992623

Arthur Miller

Arthur Miller was born in New York City in 1915. After graduating from the University of Michigan, he began work with the Federal Theatre Project. His first Broadway hit was All My Sons, closely followed by Death of a Salesman, The Crucible and A View from the Bridge. His other writing includes Focus, a novel; The Misfits, first published as a short story, then as a cinema novel; In Russia, In the Country, Chinese Encounters (all in collaboration with his wife, photographer Inge Morath) and 'Salesman' in Beijing, non-fiction; and his autobiography, Timebends, published in 1987. Among his other plays are: Incident At Vichy, The Creation of the World and Other Business, The American Clock, The Last Yankee, and Resurrection Blues. His novella, Plain Girl, was published in 1995 and his second collection of short stories, Presence, in 2007. He died in February 2005 aged eighty-nine.

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Cover for All My Sons

PENGUIN PLAYS

ALL MY SONS

Arthur Miller (1915–2005) was born in New York City and studied at the University of Michigan. His plays include All My Sons (1947), Death of a Salesman (1949), The Crucible (1953), A View from the Bridge and A Memory of Two Mondays (1955), After the Fall and Incident at Vichy (1964), The Price (1968), The Creation of the World and Other Business (1972), and The American Clock (1980). His other works include Focus, a novel (1945); The Misfits, a cinema novel (1961); and the texts for In Russia (1969), In the Country (1977), and Chinese Encounters (1979), three books in collaboration with his wife, photographer Inge Morath. His memoirs include Salesman in Beijing (1984) and Timebends, an autobiography (1987). His short fiction includes the collection I Don’t Need You Any More (1967), the novella Homely Girl, A Life (1995), and Presence: Stories (2007). His later work includes the plays The Ride Down Mt. Morgan (1991), The Last Yankee (1993), Broken Glass (1994), and Mr. Peters’ Connections (1999); Echoes Down the Corridor: Collected Essays, 1944–2000; and On Politics and the Art of Acting (2001). Among numerous honors, he received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the John F. Kennedy Lifetime Achievement Award.

BY ARTHUR MILLER

PLAYS

The Golden Years

The Man Who Had All the Luck

All My Sons

Death of a Salesman

An Enemy of the People

The Crucible

A View from the Bridge

After the Fall

Incident at Vichy

The Price

The Creation of the World and Other Business

The Archbishop’s Ceiling

The American Clock

Playing for Time

The Ride Down Mt. Morgan

Broken Glass

Mr. Peters’ Connections

Resurrection Blues

Finishing the Picture

ONE-ACT PLAYS

A View from the Bridge (one-act version)

A Memory of Two Mondays

Fame

The Reason Why

Elegy for a Lady (in Two-Way Mirror)

Some Kind of Love Story (in Two-Way Mirror)

I Can’t Remember Anything (in Danger: Memory!)

Clara (in Danger: Memory!)

The Last Yankee

SCREENPLAYS

Playing for Time

Everybody Wins

The Crucible

The Misfits

MUSICAL

Up from Paradise

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Timebends

REPORTAGE

Situation Normal

In Russia (with Inge Morath)

In the Country (with Inge Morath)

Chinese Encounters (with Inge Morath)

Salesman in Beijing

FICTION

Focus (a novel)

Jane’s Blanket (a children’s story)

The Misfits (a cinema novel)

I Don’t Need You Any More (stories)

Homely Girl, A Life (a novella and stories)

Presence: Stories

COLLECTIONS

Arthur Miller’s Collected Plays, Volumes I and II

The Portable Arthur Miller

Arthur Miller: Collected Plays 1944–1961 (Tony Kushner, editor)

Arthur Miller: Collected Plays 1964–1982 (Tony Kushner, editor)

Arthur Miller: Collected Plays 1987–2004 with Stage and Radio Plays of the 1930s and 40s (Tony Kushner, editor)

ESSAYS

The Theater Essays of Arthur Miller (Robert A. Martin, editor)

Echoes Down the Corridor: Collected Essays, 1944–2000 (Steven R. Centola, editor)

PENGUIN BOOKS

An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

375 Hudson Street

New York, New York 10014

penguin.com

First published in the United States of America by Reynal & Hitchcock 1947

Published in Penguin Books 2000

This edition published in Penguin Books 2016

Copyright 1947 by Arthur Miller

Copyright renewed 1975 by Arthur Miller

All rights reserved

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

eBook ISBN 9781101992623

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA

Miller, Arthur, 1915–2005

All my sons: a drama in three acts.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-14-311581-6

1. World War, 1939–1945—United States—Drama. 2. Aircraft industry—Corrupt practices— Drama. 3. Aircraft industry—Military aspects—Drama. 4. Fathers and sons—Drama. I. Title.

PS3525.I5156 A7 2000

815'.52—dc21 00-032621

CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that performance of All My Sons is subject to a royalty. It is fully protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America, Canada, United Kingdom and the rest of the British Commonwealth, and of all countries covered by the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artist Works, the Pan-American Copyright Conventions, the Universal Copyright Convention, and of all countries with which the United States has reciprocal copyright relations. All rights, including but not limited to professional and amateur stage rights, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, television and radio broadcasting, video and sound recording, and the rights of translation into foreign languages are strictly reserved. Particular emphasis is placed upon the matter of readings, permission for which must be secured in writing. The amateur stage performance rights in All My Sons are controlled exclusively by the Dramatists Play Service, Inc., 440 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10016. No non-professional performance of the play may be given without obtaining in advance the written permission of the Dramatists Play Service, Inc., and paying the requisite fee. Inquiries concerning other rights should be addressed to ICM Partners, 730 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10019.

Cover design by Jim Tierney

Version_1

Contents

About the Author

Also by Arthur Miller

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Characters

Synopsis of Scenes

Act One

Act Two

Act Three

For Elia Kazan

Characters

JOE KELLER

KATE KELLER

CHRIS KELLER

ANN DEEVER

GEORGE DEEVER

DR. JIM BAYLISS

SUE BAYLISS

FRANK LUBEY

LYDIA LUBEY

BERT

SYNOPSIS OF SCENES

Act One

The back yard of the Keller home in the outskirts of an American town. August of our era.

Act Two

Scene, as before. The same evening, as twilight falls.

Act Three

Scene, as before. Two o’clock the following morning.

Act One

The back yard of the Keller home in the outskirts of an American town. August of our era.

The stage is hedged on right and left by tall, closely planted poplars which lend the yard a secluded atmosphere. Upstage is filled with the back of the house and its open, unroofed porch which extends into the yard some six feet. The house is two stories high and has seven rooms. It would have cost perhaps fifteen thousand in the early twenties when it was built. Now it is nicely painted, looks tight and comfortable, and the yard is green with sod, here and there plants whose season is gone. At the right, beside the house, the entrance of the driveway can be seen, but the poplars cut off view of its continuation downstage. In the left corner, downstage, stands the four-foot-high stump of a slender apple tree whose upper trunk and branches lie toppled beside it, fruit still clinging to its branches. Downstage right is a small, trellised arbor, shaped like a sea-shell, with a decorative bulb hanging from its forward-curving roof. Garden chairs and a table are scattered about. A garbage pail on the ground next to the porch steps, a wire leaf-burner near it.

On the rise: It is early Sunday morning. Joe Keller is sitting in the sun reading the want ads of the Sunday paper, the other sections of which lie neatly on the ground beside him. Behind his back, inside the arbor, Doctor Jim

Reviews for All My Sons

[aliceanna-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A wonderful drama ... not the type that makes you want to kill yourself with in-your-face angst, but a slowly unfolding multi-layered beauty of a piece.

[carebear36 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I absolutely loved this play. I had to read Death of a Salesman for school and instantly fell in love with Miller's style. After such great works as Death of a Salesman and The Crucible, I wasn't sure how All My Sons would measure up, especially after reading mixed reviews about it. But I think this is an excellent and timeless play. Although I only got to know the characters for a short time, my heart was burning for them by the end and the final scene took my breath away. It is truly a great read.

[soplada · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

what happened in the end has Keller killed himself ? -_-
In this play you would start questioning different values of the society and the fairness of the society as the criminal is outside while an innocent man is in prison! Going deep inside the event, you might notice that Keller is not that much guilty because he is the product of his society; he is a victim to his society because this is what he has been taught. So, society victimizes its citizens by a set of corrupt values it taught.

[391_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"All My Sons" is completely and totally heartbreaking. It continually twists and turns you so that you barely know which direction you're facing, and I found myself absolutely floored in the final scene. Beautiful, beautiful play.

[cinesnail88 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

In performance, this has always been one of my all-time favorite pieces by Arthur Miller. I'd never read it before, and I'm currently stage managing a reader's theatre that includes scenes from four different Miller plays, so I decided now was the time to crack the spine of this one. Just as good textually as it is in performance, for sure, and almost definitely my favorite.