It is directed by Howard Davies, who previously directed the play at the National Theatre in 2000, for which he won both the 2000 Evening Standard and 2001 Olivier Award for Best Director. He is reunited with the same creative team from that staging, including set designer William Dudley, lighting designer Mark Henderson, composer Dominic Muldowney and sound designer Paul Groothuis.
The West End production is produced by Kim Poster for Stanhope Productions, Sonia Friedman for Sonia Friedman Productions and Eric Falkenstein.
Miller's All My Sons originally premiered on Broadway in 1947, and has been twice filmed, in 1948 and 1986. It won the 1947 Tony Award for Best Play. It was last revived on Broadway in 2008, in a production directed by British director Simon McBurney with a cast that included John Lithgow, Dianne Wiest and Katie Holmes.
The play revolves around Joe Keller (Suchet), who is alleged to have supplied World War II fighter planes with defective engines, leading to the deaths of innocent pilots — a crime for which his business partner took the fall. One of Keller's sons, himself a pilot, is thought to have been killed in action. But his mother (Wanamaker) can't accept his death and equally, can't accept that her dead son's fiancee Ann Deveer has transferred her affections to her other surviving son Chris. The confrontations that ensue lead to the uncovering of a shameful family secret.
Wanamaker was last seen on the London stage when she starred as Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing opposite Simon Russell Beale's Benedick at the National's Olivier Theatre in December 2007, and was last seen on Broadway in 2006 in Lincoln Center's production of Awake and Sing!, for which she was nominated for the 2006 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. She has also previously been nominated in the same category for her Broadway appearances in Piaf in 1981 (reprising a performance she first played for the RSC, also directed by Davies) and Loot in 1986, and was also nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play in 1999 for her performance in the title role of Electra that she had originally played at London's Donmar Warehouse and won an Olivier Award for. New York born, she is the daughter of Sam Wanamaker (founder of London's Shakespeare's Globe). Suchet was last seen on the London stage in Complicit at the Old Vic in January 2009. Best known for playing the title role in the long-running TV dramatization of Agatha Christie's "Poirot," his other stage credits include Roger Crane's The Last Confession (at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket in 2007), Once in a Lifetime (National Theatre, 2005), Amadeus (in which he played Salieri at the Old Vic in Peter Hall's 1998 revival, then reprised the role in the Broadway transfer to the Music Box Theatre in 1999), Harold Pinter's Royal Court production of the British premiere of David Mamet's Oleanna (Duke of York's, 1993) and Separation (Hampstead, then Comedy Theatre, 1987).
Also in leading roles are Stephen Campbell Moore (as Chris), Jemima Rooper (as Ann) and Daniel Lapaine (as George Deever).
All My Sons is currently booking through Sept. 11. To book tickets, contact the box office at 0844 412 4658, or visit www.amswestend.com.
