No drama could meet the moment more than this transcendent, heart-wrenching 1947 Tony Award-winning play about two business partners and their intertwined families, in which an innocent partner bears the brunt of the greed and cowardice of the other. By the end of the drama, no one is left unscathed by the single act of avarice and materialism that, in esteemed playwright Arthur Miller’s hands, becomes a symbol of the evils of 20th-century capitalism in America.
The outstanding actors in “All My Sons” include famous marquee names, Jimmy Smits (NYPD Blue, The West Wing) and Wanda De Jesús, husband and wife in real life. Smits plays affable, self-educated business owner Joe Keller. With Joe’s partner and former next-door neighbor, he built a successful company that supplied airplane parts needed for World War II aircraft. Joe’s wife is the troubled Kate (Wanda De Jesús).
A crucial character in “All My Sons” is Larry Keller, who never appears on stage but is at the heart of the Keller family’s action and psychodynamics. A WW II fighter pilot, Larry was lost overseas three years ago, but his mother Kate will not accept his death and move forward. We don’t understand her fierce conviction that her son is still alive. But her need becomes clear at the end of the single, long day in which the action of this two-hour and thirty-five-minute play occurs.
With the end of the war, Joe wants to continue focusing on growing his business and leave it to his remaining son, Chris (excellent Alejandro Hernandez). Perhaps because Joe was a child of the Depression and grew up poor, he is consumed by the need for success and his desire to deliver generational wealth to his family.
But Chris has invited his brother’s former girlfriend, Ann Deever (MaYaa Boateng), to the Keller home. He’s working up the nerve to tell his parents that he is in love with Ann and they plan to get married. Into this cauldron comes Ann’s brother, George Deever (Brandon Gill), with disturbing news about his and Ann’s imprisoned father, who is Joe’s former partner. Actors MaYaa Boateng and Brandon Gill excel in their difficult roles as the sister and brother who have conflicting feelings about the Kellers and their own father.
Although not a word of “All My Sons” has been changed since it was originally written, the use of a multi-racial cast instead of an all-white one adds a brilliant new dimension to the taut drama. With the Puerto Rican Keller family and the Black Deevers, one can infer a layering of simmering racial tension to the already pressure-filled production.
Director David Mendizábal enhanced his excellent production of “All My Sons,” keeping the drama tense, without turning it into melodrama. The entire cast of New York and Bay Area actors, including Cassidy Brown, Elissa Beth Stebbins, Regina Morones, and Brady Morales-Woolery, is powerful and first-class.
Toward the end of the play, Joe Keller, in an intense moment of conscience and guilt, admits that all soldiers matter as much as his son, that “They are all my sons.” The playwright’s message about the pain and damage caused by thinking only of oneself and one’s immediate family rather than working for society’s greater good is still tragically relevant today.
This article originally appeared in Theatrius.
by Emily S. Mendel
©Emily S. Mendel 2026 All Rights Reserved
