All My Sons

Last night I went to the Lex-Ham Community Theater production of "All My Sons", by Arthur Miller, at St. Paul Central High School. I'd like to pretend I get into the city to see plays all the time, but I've actually let my Theater in the Round seasonal tickets lapse the last year because of having a little girl hanging around. If I hadn't let them lapse, I'd have seen my business unit lead, Tim, performing in one of their plays and known he was an actor before he was outed by another business unit member who pointed out his role as Frank Lubey in "All My Sons" (Tim is second from the right in the cast picture below). I hadn't seen "All My Sons" before, and it was a great play, though very depressing. If you need the details, you can read the Wikipedia desciption. Tim very much looked the part of a 50's next door neighbor. His character was obsessed with astrology, primarily because he'd missed being drafted each time they raised the age limit during WWII and was convinced the day of your birth could make a huge difference for that reason. All of the characters had issues that evolved from and during the war and Tim's character was sort of the least-affected foil that allowed you appreciate how much it had changed the lives of everyone in the play.

The actor who played Dr. Jim Bayliss, second from the left, had a real Luke Wilson thing going on, right down to the inflection and mannerisms, which was a little distracting if you've seen a lot of Luke (and Owen)Wilson movies, but after a while just convinced me that I'd like to see the play again sometime with Luke actually in the role.