My third-act scene regularly generated chuckles, and I’m not sure why. I did take the scene rather briskly, and since it comes on the heels of the wrenching fight scene between Chris and Joe, perhaps some of the audience were looking for a release. Leta says that we’re willing to find humor in one’s admitted hypocrisy, but I’m not quite buying it. Here’s the passage (w/o stage directions) that almost always got a laugh:
JIM. What’d Joe do, tell him?
MOTHER. Tell him what?
JIM. Don’t be afraid, Kate, I know. I’ve always known.
MOTHER. How?
JIM. It occurred to me a long time ago.
MOTHER. I always had the feeling that in the back of his head, Chris… almost knew. I didn’t think it would be such a shock.
JIM. Chris would never know how to live with a thing like that. It takes a certain talent… for lying. You have it, and I do. But not him.
—Arthur Miller, All My Sons, Act III
Maybe it’s because I mislearned the penultimate sentence as “You have it, and I have it.”?