When the young playwright Arthur Miller began writing All My Sons, he was 30 years old and embarking on a project that would be either the beginning or the end of his career. His first and only play to be produced on Broadway, The Man Who Had All the Luck, was an unmitigated failure, lasting only four performances. A practical man who had lived through the Depression, Miller decided to give himself one more chance. If he did not have success with his next play, then he would quit the business and find "another line of work."
In the meantime, Tennessee Williams had met great success with The Glass Menagerie in 1945, a very personal and psychological play with poetic overtones. Miller's...
