{"id":202848,"date":"2026-03-03T22:25:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T22:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/202848\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T22:25:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T22:25:08","slug":"a-brutal-awakening-unfolds-in-all-my-sons-at-berkeley-rep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/202848\/","title":{"rendered":"A brutal awakening unfolds in ‘All My Sons’ at Berkeley Rep"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is a heaviness to every word in Arthur Miller\u2019s \u201cAll My Sons.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Characters shamble around the backyard with long faces, bemoaning all aspects of post-World War II life.<\/a> Even the laughs and smiles that Joe and Kate Keller<\/a> issue are fleeting, a respite from the journey toward a more crushing reality.<\/p>\n

A new production of iconic drama at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, starring television and film stars Wanda De Jes\u00fas and Jimmy Smits and given a masterful directing vision by David Mendiz\u00e1bal, is a marvel. The stakes are raised as members of a destroyed Puerto Rican family in Ohio live inside the fallout of horrible choices. Miller\u2019s 1947 play, which set out to fiercely criticize the American Dream and its capitalist foundation, stills feels so rich and present that it\u2019s hard to think that this play will soon reach its 80th birthday.<\/p>\n

The play\u2019s beginning finds Joe (Smits) in his backyard, where he often finds solace. But overnight, a tree planted in honor of his missing son Larry was split in half due to a fierce wind. Might this be some kind of harbinger? Or is Larry, missing for three years, communicating something from somewhere? For Joe\u2019s wife Kate (De Jes\u00fas), any sign, however miniscule, that her son is still alive is most welcome.<\/p>\n

What drives the plot is how the characters are so enmeshed in each other\u2019s lives. The Keller\u2019s neighbors Jim Bayliss (Cassidy Brown) and Jim\u2019s wife Sue (Elissa Beth Stebbins) now own the home that belonged to Joe\u2019s business partner, whose daughter Ann Deever (MaYaa Boateng) was engaged to Larry. The Keller\u2019s righteous son Chris (Alejandro Hernandez) is now planning to marry Ann, though Kate still insists Larry\u2019s absence could be temporary.<\/p>\n

It certainly doesn\u2019t help that neighbor Frank (Brady Morales-Woolery) readily espouses theories which lean toward Larry being alive. The issuance of any theory is, to Kate, beyond cruel. In De Jes\u00fas\u2019s assured hands, she is a powder keg; her piercing moans driven by a missing child are guttural.<\/p>\n

Joe presents as affable and warm, stopping at nothing to protect his family, a very worthy goal. But what makes him a monster are his efforts to cover up his role by in a work scandal \u2014 he knowingly shipped defective airplane parts to the military, causing the deaths of 21 pilots.<\/p>\n

Mendiz\u00e1bal\u2019s guidance throughout is full of commanding touches, each development provided to the actor as a life or death matter; just notice every brutal choice Smits and De Jes\u00fas are forced to reckon with as Joe and Kate. Both performers exist in a different stratosphere offstage, with television and film their more common medium. But on stage, the duo never lets their star power swallow their characters.<\/p>\n

Smits is authoritative as Joe, a man who works tirelessly to protect his family. Eventually, the walls will suffocate his secret, namely when Ann\u2019s brother George (Brandon Gill) demands accountability from the entire Keller family for how they destroyed his family.<\/p>\n

These are some of the play\u2019s most powerful scenes. Gill is a storm of rage, magnificently suppressing George\u2019s base instincts for the sake of decorum.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the devastation of discovery, in one of the play\u2019s most iconic moments, when Chris reminds Joe of his worst mistakes as a father, stewarded by the false hopes of an unattainable American Dream. \u201cA father is a father!\u201d thunders the deeply compromised Joe; the shattering interplay between Hernandez and Smits is just divine. What father would ever allow such devastation, assuring fellow patriarchs that their lives without sons would be ruined forever?<\/p>\n

This production critically explores a great canonical play with a brown lens, a coruscating artistic vision portrayed with fresh new thrills as the American dream is interrogated (using \u201cLa Despedida\u201d by Daniel Santos as one of the show\u2019s final songs is perfect).<\/p>\n

In one of the show\u2019s most beautiful artistic choices, a flashing red light metaphorically pulls in a hint of focus high upon the center wall. It is not easily seen or overbearing, but clearly there, seeming to represent an aviation obstruction light. Maybe it\u2019s a flash in the blackened ether, something to guide each lost pilot home to eternal peace.<\/p>\n

David John Ch\u00e1vez is a former chair of the American Theatre Critics\/Journalists Association, a 2020 O\u2019Neill National Critics Institute fellow, and a two-time juror for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama (2022-23). @davidjchavez.bsky.social<\/p>\n

\u2018ALL MY SONS\u2019<\/p>\n

By Arthur Miller, presented by Berkeley Repertory Theatre<\/p>\n

Through: March 29<\/p>\n

Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes with an intermission<\/p>\n

Where: Berkeley Rep\u2019s Roda Theatre, 2025 Addison St., Berkeley<\/p>\n

Tickets: $25-$135; berkeleyrep.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There is a heaviness to every word in Arthur Miller\u2019s \u201cAll My Sons.\u201d Characters shamble around the backyard…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202849,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[967,181,971,1399,143,145,144,1058,420,14258],"class_list":["post-202848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-entertainment","tag-latest-headlines","tag-lifestyle","tag-movies","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-theater","tag-things-to-do","tag-tv-streaming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}