How Jimmy Smits and Wanda De Jesús Help Reimagine ‘All My Sons’ at Berkeley Rep

This story was reported for K Onda KQED, a monthly newsletter focused on the Bay Area’s Latinx community. Click here to subscribe.

I have to admit, meeting celebrities is an awkward part of my job as a journalist. Still, when actors Jimmy Smits and Wanda De Jesús came to KQED’s studios recently for an interview on Forum about a production of All My Sons in which they are starring for Berkeley Rep, I wasn’t sure what to expect.

Smits became a household name in the 1980s thanks to his appearances on hit TV shows, including L.A. Law and NYPD Blue. I first noticed him in My Family, a 1995 hit that is considered a seminal Latino film. De Jesús has starred in dozens of movies and television shows, including CSI: Miami, Gentefied and RoboCop 2.

Seeing Smits, De Jesús, his costar and real-life partner, and the play’s director, David Mendizábal, all hanging out before the interview, I experienced a moment of awe from being in the presence of three powerhouse Latine artists and realized this is what true representation looks like. Mendizábal was the behind-the-scenes mastermind who created a space for two brilliant actors to shine.

All My Sons tells the story of a father whose success in business allows him to attain the American Dream, but at a high cost to himself and everyone around him. Legendary playwright Arthur Miller wrote it in 1947 with all-white characters, but when Mendizábal studied it in high school, they imagined a different cast.

“It’s a play that I always wanted to do since I first read it. I immediately saw my family in it, even though it wasn’t written for them,” they said. “I grew up in a time when I had to see myself in the stories of white people. You like this thing, but you can’t find yourself in it, so how can you imagine yourself in it?”

In their role as associate artistic director at Berkeley Rep, Mendizábal, now 41, is in a position to make their vision and version of a story into reality. They reimagined the main characters as Puerto Rican and brought in Black and Latino actors for other roles while keeping the script and characters’ names intact.

“What really piqued my interest was David’s take on what he wanted to say with this particular piece,” Smits said during his interview on Forum. “And, how, on a cultural level, we can brushstroke in the importance of the piece itself in 1947 and add these other touches without changing the basic tenets of the play.”

Mendizábal grew up in Orlando, Fla., where they were raised by a father from Ecuador and a mother from Puerto Rico. They learned about the art of performing from watching their father, an immigration attorney, defend his clients in court.

“It was like watching a play, like an actor telling people’s stories,” they said. “It showed me the power of performance and how the power of someone’s story could change lives.”

Mendizábal’s high school drama program set them on a trajectory to study theater at New York University. They stayed in New York working for various theater companies, including The Movement Theatre Company, where they worked for 15 years before joining Berkeley Rep in 2022.

While New York is the epicenter of American theater, Berkeley Rep offered Mendizábal an opportunity to stage larger, more ambitious projects. Their previous productions for Berkeley Rep include Mexodus, Mother Road and Sanctuary City, all of which were written by playwrights of color and featured diverse casts.

Mendizábal’s goal is to produce great art that incorporates their values of promoting social justice, radical inclusion, and anti-racism. They recalled that their mother discouraged them from pursuing a career in theater, not because she didn’t believe in them, but because she couldn’t see a path forward for them.

Mendizábal realized early that they didn’t want to be an actor or a writer. Instead, they wanted to focus on working behind the scenes to shape stories and bring productions to life.

“The reality in arts and entertainment is who are the ones making the decisions — it’s not the actors,” they said. “There’s real power in being the one who gets to invite people in the room to do the thing they love.”

When it came time to cast All My Sons, Mendizábal immediately thought of Smits, even though it felt aspirational despite Berkeley Rep’s reputation for attracting big-name actors.

Mendizábal had seen Smits in Anna in the Tropics more than 20 years ago in a rare all-Latino cast in a Broadway play. It turned out Smits and De Jesús had costarred in the Berkeley Rep production of The Guys in 2003, so they were interested.

When I saw the play with my mother, I was captivated by the entire cast and the storytelling. One of the plotlines involves two brothers who fought in World War II. One brother disappears, and the other returns home and wants to marry his brother’s former girlfriend, which felt very telenovela-like to my mom and me. The play’s themes are universal, Mendizábal said, which is why it makes sense to bring a new lens to the characters.

Experiencing live theater, especially when it includes actors like Smits and De Jesús, who you are used to seeing on a screen, was awe-inspiring.

Even as the entertainment industry continues to sideline Latino actors and stories, meeting Mendizábal, Smits and De Jesús reminded me of the amazing art our people produce and why it’s so important to support them, especially this close to home.

It’s no small feat for Smits, 70, and De Jesús, 68, to have sustained decadeslong careers in acting, a notoriously challenging field, especially for Latine artists.

“There is a demonization of all things Latino, the culture. Unfortunately, this (presidential) administration has made half of the country afraid of the other and what it represents,” De Jesús told me. “Our culture informs us, but we are creative human beings. And working with David, he comes from the same mindset. He is Latino and proud of it, but his imagination as a creator, he works with people that can think beyond the tropes and beyond the stereotypes and that’s what is so exciting. His future voice is very important in the theater.”

All My Sons at Berkeley Repertory Theatre runs through March 29 at Roda Theatre, 2025 Addison St., Berkeley. Tickets cost $25-$135.