A Woman Among Women – 31 May 2026

A gender-swapped love letter to Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, A Woman Among Women explores how many ways there are to be a strong woman in the world. Like Miller’s men, Julia Arthur Jonas’s women are deeply flawed, trying to provide for their families, and unafraid to take up space in their lives and in the world. They are no less committed when it comes to responsibility and accountability, taking on both credit and blame, yet unable to quell their own private feelings of shame. The production itself is insightful and absolutely gut-wrenching, though the design elements leave something to be desired. The characters are ironclad, and all lovable to a fault. The ethical dilemma posed at the end that turns the tables complicates the scenario, but not our feelings about the characters Jonas has painted for us to cherish. This leads me to the conclusion that “a woman among women” is meant to refer to a woman who makes the best she can out of the knowledge she asks and acts swiftly and decisively to help those she loves, no matter what the price. So, in the end, not that different from a man among men.

It was delightful to spend an afternoon with this cast of characters. The story takes place in Cleo (Dee Pelletier)’s backyard, which quickly establishes itself as the meeting place for the neighborhood. Cleo’s daughter, Jo (not pictured) is in jail for rendering a man disabled in what is presumed to be a manic episode. Her husband, Roy (Gabriel Brown) is in town to clear out a storage unit. Love blossoms between Roy and Jo’s sister, Grace (Zoë Geltman), amid a world of side characters who want to help get Jo out of jail. 

The parallel to All My Sons emerges when Cleo, a licensed psychiatric professional is revealed to have changed Jo’s meds without Jo’s knowledge due to Jo’s first trimester pregnancy. When Roy reveals an intended abortion, Cleo is faced with the possibility that she created the unsafe strain in which Jo went off the rails with her desire to save an unborn child who Jo didn’t intend to keep. This is analogous to the father in All My Sons whose faulty airplane parts inadvertently kill his son, who is a war pilot. Both parents struggle to grapple with what they have done. At the end of All My Sons, it is traditional to hear a gunshot indicating suicide, yet A Woman Among Women ends simply with a rushing sound effect that doesn’t necessarily indicate Cleo’s death. I interpreted this as reflecting the strength of women to persevere, even when faced with the knowledge that they are responsible for something awful— even when faced with the loss of their community. This moment celebrates women’s resilience, showcasing the difference between a man among men and a woman among women. In the face of impossible difficulty, women trust they will find a way to keep going.

I found the scenic (Brittany Vasta) change confusing. The show began with a green carpet (grass?) and a royal blue curtain, with a partial circle of red chairs for the audience, rounded out in the first few moments by lawn chairs for the actors. Towards the end, a physical porch reminiscent of the National Theater’s set of All My Sons emerges and several audience members are reseated. I’m not sure why we didn’t have the full set from the beginning, as the cluster of primary colors (red, green, blue) bordered on clashing. The scenic change was handled abysmally, with an actor engaging the audience in random rhythmic clapping and knee slapping that could not have felt more nonsensically out of place. It felt like the stuff of another genre of theatre altogether.

The substance of A Woman Among Women is of import. There have been several shows this theatre season that have tried to paint a picture of a diverse cross section of women, and this is one of the most successful. Unlike Liberation, for example, which has an overly explanatory narrator jumping in to state the obvious, A Woman Among Women shows rather than tells. By observing this community, the audience builds their perception of each character based on their values, their ideas, their morals, and where they draw the line on matters of import. The relationships between characters inform and contextualize, and the audience realizations along the way feel satisfying as they are earned. A Woman Among Women is an exceptional piece of writing, both in the context of All My Sons, and as a standalone piece. Straddling a lot of worlds worth of assumptions, it defies expectations and does what all great theatre aspires to do— leaves the audience with a lot to think about.

I attended this performance on a press pass from DKC/O&M.