All My Sons

Play (1946)
by Arthur Miller
Directed by Scott Edmiston
Lyric Stage of Boston
Copley Square area
September 30 – October 25, 2026

Scenic Designer: Janie E. Howland; Costume Designer: Chelsea Kerl; Lighting Designer: Karen Perlow; Sound Designer and Composer: Oleg Smirnov

With Allison Beauregard (Sue Bayliss); Cara Clough (Lydia); Laura Marie Duncan (Kate Keller); Josephine Moshiri Elwood (Ann Deever); Chris Heuisler (Dr. Jim Bayliss); Julian Hirshfield (Bert); Quinton Kappel (George Deever); Eric McGowan (Frank Lubey); Bill Mootos (Joe Keller); Mark Souza (Chris Keller)

During World War II, Joe Keller (Bill Mootos) is an arms manufacturer who had faced charges of knowingly manufacturing aircraft engines with faulty parts. His son, Larry, an Army Air Force pilot, went missing during the war and Larry’s fiancée, Ann Deever (Josephine Moshiri Elwood), understands that Larry will never return. Ann is the daughter of Joe’s business partner and former neighbor, Steve Deever, who was convicted of the same crime for which Joe was charged. She is being pursued by Chris Keller (Mark Souza), Larry’s younger brother, who is in love with Ann and who also believes that Larry will never return. Kate Keller (Laura Marie Duncan), Joe’s wife and Larry’s and Chris’ mother, is holding onto that hope that Larry is alive and does not accept Chris’ involvement with Ann. Kate is also holding onto some inside information about Joe’s business dealings. George Deever (Quinton Kappel), Ann’s older brother, had believed that his father was indeed guilty, but after visiting him in jail now believes that he is innocent. What a knotted mess! (To find out the final score, see the spoilers section below.)

This tightly wound and moving play established Arthur Miller as a major American dramatic playwright. It is, on the one hand, such a deeply upsettingly and densely packed narrative, that its inevitably dismal destiny has the quality of great tragic drama. On the other hand, the plot involving the pursuit by a brother of his late brother’s fiancée, and having that woman be the daughter of the brothers’ father’s business partner, seems highly contrived. Nonetheless, despite the hard-to-believe quality of the plot, it works as a vehicle for this tragedy.

Apparently, Miller got the inspiration for the play from a news article in Ohio about the indictment of military officers who were involved in conspiring with the Ohio company Wright Aeronautical Corporation to approve defective aircraft engines for use. Borrowing a plot device from Henrik Ibsen’s The Wild Duck about two business partners, one of whom is corrupt, Miller added to the initial intrigue. The further complicating element of the surviving brother seeking the love of the daughter of his father’s convicted and jailed business partner seems to have been pure Miller.

Scott Edmiston, the director of this dark and effective production, has done a good job of creating an ensemble that, with a common mission of furthering the knotty and difficult evolution of the plot, has created a heavily moody and compelling result.

As Chris Keller, Mark Souza, is, for the first half, appropriately creepy in his energetic suppression of what seems obviously problematic. The portrayal of his pursuit of Ann comes across as intensely heartfelt though the underlying context of the performance, craftily, is that the earnestness of that passion is framed by a self-deceiving consciousness.

As Ann, Josephine Moshiri Elwood, projects an earnestness and innocence that does not yield to self-delusion, rendering a portrayal that is heartfelt but not naive. Naturally, one wonders how Ann, as Miller writes her character, justifies her movement of affection from Larry to Chris. The script itself is a bit of a stretch in that regard, but Elwood does about as good a job as one can do to manage that curiosity.

As Joe, Bill Mootos manages to capture the creepiness of the insistently suppressed manager of hidden facts, giving a good sense, especially in characterological echoes with Chris, of how that vulnerability of character might travel across the generations. Certainly, one of the curiosities of the play is how Chris demonstrates aspects of this quality of character early on, before he comes to a fork in the road.

As George, who bears the cross of knowledge, Quinton Kappel is dark and dangerous, and one comes to realize, through the intensity of this performance, how appropriate is this quality for this character.

And Kate, Joe’s wife, is, certainly, at the hub of the tragedy, devoted to her husband and family, holding on hope that her older son is alive, and faced with what she knows to be the truth and its inevitable impact. Laura Marie Duncan gives a good, solid, down-to-earth interpretation of this complexity.

Director Edmiston has compiled a cast and put together a production that, with characterizations that seem quite ordinary and down-to-earth in one sense, and faced with extraordinary circumstances, accentuates one of Miller’s salient dramatic talents – to bring high tragedy into the living rooms of ordinary people. The current production does exactly that, and creates an intensity which, though uncomfortable, presses deeply on the kinds of tragedies that continue to surround us. Whether the selection of this drama about corruption in business and government is intentionally directed to the current scene, its message about greed, irresponsibility and the failure of government to restrain this, and the attendant price paid by ordinary people, is highly relevant.

– BADMan (aka Charles Munitz)