‘All My Sons’ is ‘timeless and powerful’

Angelique Ducounge/ Contributing Writer

“All My Sons” is set to take debut March 3 at 8 p.m. in the Wertheim Performing Arts Center.

The play takes place in 1947 and follows the lives of the Kellers, a seemingly perfect all-American family with some skeletons in their closet. Their family-owned business produced defective plane parts responsible for the deaths of 21 pilots, a crime for which one man has already been jailed, while the Kellers, deemed innocent, continue leading comfortable lives.

“Ultimately it’s a play about what money does to people,” said Michael Yawney, assistant theatre professor and director of All My Sons. “The demands of capitalism really demand that we look out for ourselves and our families. But do we do that at the expense of others?”

Yawney says the play starts light-hearted but grows to show how greed can blind and damage a community.

Yawney and Juan Alfonso, assistant director, drew comparisons between the play and a classic Greek Tragedy.

“The inevitability of it comes through a lot,” Alfonso said. “It’s so timeless and powerful.”

With tensions running high and the Kellers’ innocence coming into question, Yawney notes that “All My Sons” will be both a mystery and thriller as the audience tries to figure out what caused the tragedy.

Written by Arthur Miller in 1947, the play served as a criticism of The American dream, elements of which Yawney agrees are timely in our current political climate.

“I think this play is about… our responsibility to our neighbors,” said Yawney.

He says it’s the question of what people are willing to do to buy The American dream that lies at the root of the story.

“In this play what people have to do to buy the American dream is really the topic. The American dream isn’t really something abstract that just happens, it’s something that people take action to get and there are consequences to those actions,” said Yawney.

Alfonso concurred with the assessment, asking where it is that one draws the line.

The cast is comprises all senior BFA performers, something Yawney believes aligns well with the underlying theme as the actors prepare to graduate and embark on their own journey to achieve the dream.

Alfonso says all the actors are the same ages as people who would serve in the military during the play’s setting.

Yawney says the University’s diversity added another layer of uniqueness to the performances of the cast.

“These are people whose families and who themselves have faced incredible hardships, who have sacrificed to achieve the American dream, and so when they approach this material they’re not college students just putting on a character they are people talking about the most fundamental realities of their lives.” said Yawney. “These students have brought so much of themselves to this.”

All My Sons showings:

Wednesday, Mar. 8th, 8pm

Thursday, Mar. 9th, 8pm

Friday, Mar. 10th, 8pm

Saturday, Mar. 11th, 8pm

Sunday, Mar. 12th, 2pm

Tickets are $10 for FIU students, $12 for FIU faculty and staff, and $15 for general admission. They can be purchased at http://carta.fiu.edu/theatre/productions-news/productions/current-season/