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‘Purpose’ Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins’ Riotous Play, Directed by Phylicia Rashad
In Purpose, Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins’ satiric family expose directed by Phylicia Rashad, we meet a patriarchal Black American civil rights icon, Solomon “Sonny Jasper (Harry Lennix), who is forced to confront his disappointments and foibles as his family gathers to celebrate the homecoming of his eldest son and namesake, Solomon “Junior” Jasper (Glenn Davis). Navigating the audience through treacherous familial waters with asides and intermittent, pointed narration, the youngest son Nazareth “Naz” Jasper (Jon Michael Hill), explores his family’s complicated legacy as he attempts to confront issues about his own identity and future.
Currently running at the Hayes Theater until July 6th, this ferocious, edgy and sardonic send up of Black American political and religious hypocrisy resonates with dramatic power. Its superlative performances and Rashad’s fine direction, make it a must-see. Importantly, in typical Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins style, the tour de force with jokes-a-plenty raises questions. It prompts us to reflect upon our own life intentions, as we examine the Jasper family’s dynamic through the acute perspective of the endearing, sensitive, vulnerable and authentic Naz. Hill is just terrific in a role which requires heavy lifting throughout.
As the play opens we note the subject matter and foundation upon which Jacobs-Jenkins’ moralistically satiric drama rests, namely the Jaspers (think along the lines of Jesse Jackson), whose heritage boasts of leaders in civil rights, congress and the protestant church. Todd Rosenthal’s lovely, well-appointed, Jasper family home represents prosperity, upward mobility and the success of the celebrated Black political elite. Solomon Jasper was Martin Luther King, Jr.’s heir apparent in the civil rights movement.
However, among other questions the play asks is, what happened to the substance and efficacy of the movement, considering the current “state of the union” under MAGA Party president Donald Trump, whose cabinet has no Black American member? What are the legacies of the Jasper’s faith? What is the heritage of their former Black radicalism, which Naz calls into question throughout the play, as the evening explodes into tragicomedy in front of unintended witness Aziza Houston (Kara Young)? As a result of the evening with the Jaspes, Aziza is horrified to see her civil rights icons, Solomon and Claudine, smashing her respect for them to smithereens during the family imbroglio in Act I.
Via an intriguing flashback/flashpresent device, Naz exposes and illustrates how the family’s shining history becomes obliterated by circumstances in the present “state of the family union,” which has not lived up to their patriarch’s illustrious expectations. Ultimately, Solomon Jasper, too, may be counted as not living up to his own personal expectations, a fact revealed by the conclusion of the second act, which further adds to his hypocrisy for giving Naz a hard time about his sexually, abstemious, personal choices..
With increasing intensity, the upheavals occur by the end of the first act and augment into further revelations and complications well into the second, until the wounds exposed are too great to ignore. Naz’s final synopsis and soulful, poignant comments solidify at the conclusion bringing this family retrospective together. His questioning wisdom leaves us as he is left, wondering what is the trajectory of this once august Jasper legacy, which Naz has chosen not to perpetuate. Not going into politics or the church, Naz selected a career in photography where he communes with nature’s beauty and peace.
Jacobs-Jenkins’ work is filled with contrasts: truth and lies, health and sickness, moral uprightness and moral turpitude. In fact the contrast of the outer image of the Jasper calm and sanctity versus the inner corruption and turmoil becomes evident with Jacobs-Jenkins’ character interactions throughout, heightened by Naz’s confidential asides.
Additionally, this contrast of superficial versus soul depth is superbly factored in by Rashad and Todd Rosenthal’s collaboration on set design. Initially, all is peaceful in their gorgeous home set up by matriarch Claudine Jasper (the excellent Latanya Richardson Jackson). The home’s beauty belies any roiling undercurrents beneath the family’s solid, upright probity. Perfection is their manufactured brand, which Aziza has bought hook, line and sinker as a Jasper fan.
To continue with the Jaspers’ “brand,” the inviting great room boasts a comfortable and lovely open layout-living room and dining room-backed by a curved staircase to the second level of bedrooms off the landing. The dark peach-colored walls are beautifully emphasized with white trim molding. The cherry wood furniture and cream colored sofa color-coordinate with the walls. The sofa is accented with appropriate pillows. Interspersed among furniture pieces are obvious antique heirlooms. Indeed, all is perfect with matching table runners and dining room tablecloth and napkins and dinnerware tastefully selected for its enhancing effect.
Prominently featured is the Jasper family heritage and legacy, a large portrait of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. proudly displayed on the first level, and a lesser portrait of political/cultural heir apparent, Solomon “Sonny” Jasper on the second floor landing. Surrounding the Sonny Jasper portrait are framed photos chronicling the civil rights warriors and family, shining their historical significance. When Aziza first arrives and is welcomed desperately by Claudine who fears Naz’s not bringing any woman home means he is gay, Aziza is gobsmacked by the house. Seeing the portraits and Solomon Jasper, she realizes who Naz really is. She is over the moon slathering blandishments to Sonny. Thrilled, she can’t help but take selfies with the Jaspers to send to her mom, a mutual fan. Naz is beyond humiliated and surreptitiously pleads with her to leave.
What does Naz know about his family that he fears Aziza will discover? If Aziza doesn’t leave quickly, his mother’s hospitality to divine who Aziza is will make sure she stays. Indeed, Jackson’s Claudine never fails in her intentions.
Against the storied backdrop of their illustrious past that Aziza worships, the garish present unfolds at dinner. It is the celebration of Junior’s homecoming and reunion with the family since his thirty month prison stay for embezzling campaign funds. Junior’s behavior is one of the gravest disappointments that Sonny holds against his son. For him it is unforgivable that his namesake who was to take his place has tarnished the Jasper name with corruption.
Thus, when Junior presents a birthday gift to Claudine, of the letters she wrote to him in prison in a lovely book, Sonny scoffs, especially after reading a particularly mundane letter. (Lennix’s reading of a sample letter is hysterical). Then, Sonny questions Junior who wants to exploit their family name and go on tour with the book of Claudine’s letters, and Claudine, lifting up the hellishness of his imprisonment like a martyr.
Ironically, bitterly, humorously, Sonny airs his disgust that Junior would present himself as a Nelson Mandella, as if Junior’s prison experience was in any way equivalent to the horrors of imprisonment used as a tool of oppression and racism throughout US history. Sonny is especially livid because Junior’s crimes ripped off his father and Blacks who supported him. Additionally, the time Junior did was easy because Sonny used his influence to get Junior into “a minimum security playground.” Though it is revealed that Junior has bi-polar disorder, (the scene when Glenn Davis manifests this is superb), Sonny lacks empathy for Junior. He dismisses his illness and says he got caught where other politicians don’t get caught because Junior is stupid.
At dinner the dour Morgan (Alana Arenas), Junior’s wife, sits quietly at first. After Junior uplifts Claudine, Morgan claims neither he nor the Jaspers helped her through Junior’s mental breakdown. Nor does he acknowledge her visiting him through the prison experience with a present. Morgan rips into him and the family. They are “hucksters,” who don’t care about her and “have no sense of responsibility or remorse.” Listening to the Jasper’s accountants, Morgan signed their joint tax returns that implicated her in tax fraud with Junior. She has lost her career and will have to do time in prison for an error that she was ignorant about, trusting the family to not mislead her.
Thus, the artifice gradually peels away, shaped by the characters’ ever increasing digs at each other and Naz’s humorous perspective. To top it off, despite her promise to Naz that she will keep quiet, Aziza reveals how she trusts Naz to be the sperm donor for their child. This piece of information is a stick of dynamite for this religious family who chaffs at unmarried young people sleeping together. Then, when Claudine and Morgan go head to head and Morgan calls the family’s “honesty” into question and accuses Sonny of having “his fiftyleven other kids scattered all over this damn country,” Claudine loses it and gets violent.
Ironically, the act ends with the patriarch blaming Claudine, “I have let you build this house on a foundation of self-deceit.” Sonny loudly declares the time is now for “redemption” and a “new era in this family – a new era of truth! Truth!”
Act II indicates how that “truth” is to come about, as Naz and Aziza argue about why she broke her promise to him. Abashedly, Naz disavows the violence that spilled out between his mother and Morgan. Meanwhile, the verbal and emotional violence has always been an undercurrent in the family that has never confronted their issues. In other words, the dissembling, the lies and the deceit have augmented until “enough is enough.” Aziza, caught up in the fray rethinks what she has seen and no longer has any wish to have Naz’s child from their “illustrious” DNA. Additionally, she has learned not to lionize any other civil rights icon or celebrity easily, again. Celebrities, like the Jaspers, are not saviors or worthy to be made into icons. They have clay feet if you see them up close and personal.
Though the first act sails smoothly, the second act digresses in part with Naz’s extensive dialogue and explanations, which might have been slimmed down. Nevertheless, as we learn about each family member’s complications, the intensity shifts. Though there is less humor, there is incredible poignancy and each of the actors have their moments to shine. Not only do we note the profound aspects of character complexity, we understand the difficulty of attempting to maintain an oversized legacy of greatness when one is an imperfect human being. Indeed, the one who comes out best appears to be Naz, until the conclusion. It is then we understand how the family has impacted him and in response, he has sent himself spinning into his own chaos, which he will have to unravel for himself. So do we all as we deal with our own legacy, heritage and family dysfunction.
Purpose is brilliant, if a tad unwieldy. However, the ensemble cracks sharply like lightening. Rashad has a deep understanding of Jacobs-Jenkins’ themes, dynamic characters, prickly relationships and the sub rosa levels of meaning in the interactions. The pace is lively despite the playwright’s wordiness and keeps the audience engaged.
Kudos to the creative team including those not already mentioned: Dede Ayite (costume design), Amith Chandrashaker (lighting design), Nikiya Mathis (hair & wig design), and Bob Milburn & Michael Bodeen (sound design). Purpose runs two hours fifty minutes with one intermission at the Helen Hayes Theater on 44th between 7th and 8th. https://purposeonbroadway.com/
‘Appropriate,’ Exceptionally Acted, Scorching, Complex, Revelatory
Appropriate’s theme
The truth is the truth, no matter how hard one betrays oneself into believing otherwise. Currently, segments of the American population have difficulty with the nation’s history of bigotry and murder and would mitigate it, not through reparations and reconciliation, but through dismissal and nihilism. As long as such masking occurs, the violence will continue in a legacy that can only be expiated and ended by confronting the deplorable aftereffects of racism head on. Such is the basic theme of Appropriate, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins harrowing, humorous, profound family drama about loss, self-betrayal, torment, fear and generational psychic damage, that is currently unraveling great performances at 2nd Stage’s Helen Hayes Theater. The drama with sardonic humor is in its Broadway premiere and has now been extended.
Before the curtain lifts onto the 7th generation Arkansas plantation home of the Lafayette family, the theater is plunged into the darkness of nighttime. Then, Bray Poor and Will Pickens let loose the prolonged, screeching sound of Cicadas, a sound repeated between acts and scenes. When Jacobs-Jenkins determines we’ve “had enough,” the lights dimly come up on a once stately mansion interior- living room, foyer, and stairs-leading up to the balcony landing and off to unseen bedrooms, where Toni (Sarah Paulson,Talley’s Folly), Bo (Corey Stoll, Macbeth), and Frans (Michael Esper, The Last Ship), slept during their childhood.
The mansion, in complete disarray, filled with hoarder’s junk-furniture, ceramics, glassware, clothing and more-still has remnants of beauty amidst its dilapidation and tawdry dressings of curtains and outdated furniture, thanks to dots’ prodigious scenic design. Symbolic of the once “glorious” South, with its penchant for ritual and gentility delivered by Black enslavement, servitude, Jim Crow peonage, bigotry and prejudice, the mansion, we come to discover, hides remnants of brutality, sadism and murder, a legacy of the Layafettes, which has not been recognized or confronted by the present generation, especially Toni.
The Backstory
In the backstory, we learn that Toni, Bo and their families are at the plantation for the auction of the estate interior, house and extensive property which includes two cemeteries, one for seven generations of Lafayette ancestors, and the other a slave cemetery isolated near the algae-ridden pond. Bo and Toni have kept in touch and were together for their father’s funeral six months prior, when they discussed raising money to pay off the loans of the estate’s indebtedness. Though they try to contact Franz, who has been AWOL for 10 years, they have been unable to tell him of their father’s death and the disposal of the estate.
It is no small irony that Franz, at the top of the play, comes in through the window with his girlfriend like a thief in the night, in the early morning hours, the day the liquidators are supposed to catalogue and price the estate’s valuables. When Paulson’s Toni makes a dramatic entrance from the 2nd floor balustrade, shining a flashlight on Franz, ranting at his presence and interrupting his reunion with her son, his nephew, Rhys (Graham Campbell), we question what is going on. From this incident of conflict, Jacobs-Jenkins unspools the mystery about the family, its members, their dead father and their ancestors. Throughout the play by agonizing and strategic degrees, the playwright reveals the Lafayette’s tragic family portrait, and explores many themes, key among them ancestral accountability for the past sins, which if not addressed or confronted, will be a curse on future generations.
As the play progresses and the siblings deal with the estate, we note that Toni, as executrix, makes unilateral decisions and controls everything to the point of “spur-of-the-moment” irrationality (though her explanations to herself are rational). This foments more chaos than is necessary in a situation fraught with turmoil, divisiveness and alienation among the siblings.
Pressures and conflicts in the Lafayette family
Pressures of the father’s illness and death, the disparate circumstances in each sibling’s family, Toni’s divorce and difficulties with her son Rhys (Graham Campbell), exacerbate the tensions of the stressful time, as the siblings attempt to create order out of chaos and obtain the most money to pay off the debts. Handling the estate and settling the inheritance would upend the most sanguine, peace-loving and close siblings. However, for the tormented Lafayettes, settling the estate is apocalyptic. The brokenness of each family member and their significant others raises the temperature of the non air-conditioned mansion to an explosive boiling point by the end of the play.
The first roiling incident begins with Franz, renamed from Frank by his California-dreaming, tendentious, sweetie, River (Elle Fanning is brilliant as the peace-keeping, pompous, shaman-loving spiritualist). The moment Paulson’s acerbic, sniping Toni sees Franz, she launches into strident questions, as he soft peddles his replies and defends himself against her accusations that he only showed up to greedily collect “his share.” When she threatens to “call the cops” on him, he ignores her and goes upstairs with River to sleep off their long trip from Oregon, where he had been hiding out for a decade.
Why she responds toward her youngest brother this way is revealed in the last act cataclysm. However, her bile-frothing attitude, while humorous and sardonic, frightens. Though she seeks hugs from her son Rhys and tells him she loves him, we question her volcanic response to Franz and fiery tirade answering Bo’s comments about shelling out money to maintain the estate through the last years of their father’s illness. Apparently, Bo paid for the aide who ministered to their father almost 24/7, and paid for all the house expenses. According to Bo, he took that “hit,” and hopes to recoup some of that loss from the proceeds of the auction and estate sale.
Questions about the kids’ discoveries
Toni dismisses him saying that it was “their father” who was ill. The implication is that he is heartless and should have opened his bank account willingly with no thought of recompense. We are curious about this “selflessness” she demands of others, while equating her time with her father and drives to Arkansas from Atlanta as more than the equivalent of the money Bo paid. Meanwhile, why wasn’t the father’s grand estate enough to pay for its upkeep? As a DC district justice (in line for becoming a Supreme Court Justice), didn’t the father have the acumen to financially manage it? Why didn’t Toni contribute monetarily, and why are there heavy loans against the property? And why did the father keep quiet about his precarious financial circumstances? Eventually, we learn the answers about this family which is so dysfunctional, it is caving in on itself by the weight of its violent legacy which they refuse to confront.
Little of what her siblings say Toni takes in giving any weight to their position or logic. She is quick to retort and uplift her own situation and attack theirs with seething anger. Whether this is a function of her age (the oldest), and her position as executrix, one concludes that it is mostly due to Jacob-Jenkins’ stylized characterizations in the service of elucidating his themes. A key theme is that karma is a bitch. Unless you break the cycle of abuse of others (slavery, murder) and acknowledge and reverse it, it comes to haunt you with its own particular brand of sickness and blight in the human heart. By the end of the play, we note how each sibling is crippled with agony, divided and isolated from each other without any possibility of reconciliation or redemption.
That this may be the result of what their ancestors had wrought upon the land they “appropriated,” and the slaves they abused, and the Black people they may have seen or had lynched, generational accountability is the last thing these present day Layafettes consider. However, adding other clues (i.e. River feeling the presence of spirits), it is a sub rosa theme of the play. Bo, Toni and even Franz hurt, lash out and move to disinherit themselves from each other, the estate valuables and the plantation which they leave to the elements, abandoning it.
Who would question their behavior? Who would want their legacy which involves lynchings (they find photographs of Blacks lynched), glass jars filled with noses, fingers, ears and penises of Black people carved out of the lynched bodies, and a Klan hood that was their father’s. Clearly, the race hatred permeated their childhood, but they didn’t realize it, having spent most of their lives in Washington, DC and some summers at the Arkansas plantation. Besides, around them, their father never mentioned the “N” word, though Bo remembers in college the judge refused to look at “in the eye,” or “shake the hand” of a Black dorm-mate.
The mystery revealed: spoiler alert.
The siblings and apparently, the father and mother, didn’t deal with their ancestry, but like so many others in the south, received the benefits of “free labor” and reaped the rewards of servitude and Black social oppression through the generations without considering the possibility of karmic reparations exacted on their being, emotionally, spiritually and psychically. Jacobs-Jenkins gives clues of the cruelty of their ancestors toward the Black population throughout, via the collector’s items and junk their father and his relatives hoarded.
That this sale of the estate represents the family’s apotheosis of failure and self-destruction, Jacobs-Jenkins uncovers by the conclusion. Bo has lost his cushy job. Toni has been fired from her teaching position when her son distributed her meds to classmates, for which he was kicked out of high school. She is finalizing her divorce and Rhys doesn’t want to stay with her but is going with his father because she is not a good mother.
We discover that Franz is only interested in collecting “his share,” after befriending Bo’s daughter Cassidy (Alyssa Emily Marvin), who broadcast family events to him via her Facebook pictures. Franz had been receiving checks from his father to pay for his upkeep after his jail sentence as a pederast (he got a teenager pregnant). During Toni’s harangues, we discover, though Franz is presently “clean,” Toni suffered with “worry” through his hospitalizations, rehabilitations and addictions to drugs and alcohol. Meanwhile, Franz blames his “bi-polar,” psychically-broken father who fell apart after his wife’s loss to cancer, as he attempted to raise Franz by indulging him. Franz also blames his siblings’ abandonment of him to his father’s questionably abusive care. Of course Toni counters Franz “defense” as lies.
The Lafayettes are an emotionally debilitated family on steroids
Jacobs-Jenkins clarifies that this is a emotionally debilitated family on steroids. Maybe the only member with any rationality is Bo, but only because of his wife. When discussing their father’s racism and prejudices, which Toni denies, Rachel mentions she overheard their father slur her when he referred to her on the phone with a crony, as Bo’s “Jew wife.” Toni dismisses her and the race hatred artifacts. She is “put-out” by Rachel’s alarm that the children have seen the photo album of Black lynchings and incensed that Rachel implies her father is anti-semitic and racist, she ends up provoking Rachel to provoke Toni to slur her. Toni does with ironic abandon, then claims she was joking.
Interestingly, Bo, who lives in the North has put a great distance between himself and his heritage, which is another form of dismissiveness. However, he has taken his racist attitudes with him. He attempts to recoup money from the estate by arranging to sell the photographs of the lynchings of Blacks, which apparently are valuable on a covert white nationalist market of sadistic memorabilia of the “good ole” Southern “glory days”
Bo is so numbed to his legacy, he doesn’t see the egregious amorality of making money off others’ victimization and death. This is a corrupt continuation of the “benefits” the South receives from its Jim Crow policies of racism and murder, heightened by the fact that there is a market for these “valuable collector’s items.” Though each revelation of the father’s racist hoardings is achieved through the kids’ innocent, sardonic, humorous discovery, as the adults try to cover up the shocking “in-your-face” racism, the audience’s real shock is at the macabre, psychotic nature of keeping such items. We ask, why would the father, a judge, “get off” on photos of Black lynchings and jars of Black body parts from the lynchings?
Who does the photo album belong to or the glass jars of body parts?
Toni, Bo and Franz don’t find this loathsome about their father, and try to pretend it belongs to someone else.
Jacobs-Jenkins clarifies the craven, broken psyche of Bo, Toni and Franz, who don’t see anything wrong with selling these items to recoup the estate’s losses. On the other hand, Rachel is outraged her children have been the ones to discover the photo album and jars of body parts. And at some point, she intends to discuss what they mean with her kids to work through the psychological shock of seeing such horrors. Indeed, she is the only one who seems to understand the brutality and violence such artifacts signify. It is her morality that stirs the morality of the others to try to protect the kids from further exposure. But Cassidy is interested because it is verboten, so she continues to look, seduced to the grotesque, cruel voyeurism that this American past was normal for the South..
The playwright speaks volumes through what is absent in the siblings’ conversation. They don’t deal with why the father hoarded such items and didn’t find a better place for them in the Smithsonian African-American History Museum, Arkansas African-American History Museum, or other educational institutions or museums. Why has he kept the photos in a shelf in the foyer, and the Klan hood and the body parts in his bedroom? They weren’t secreted away in a hiding place in the attic or elsewhere, but were out in the open. Obviously, there are two sides to the retired judge’s character. One part of him justifies lawless lynching via white domestic terrorist racism, while the other lives peaceably as a justice. Perhaps Franz has a better handle on his father’s “bi-polar” nature than Toni, who disbelieves all of the “incongruities” Bo, Rachel and Franz have pointed out about him.
The final coup de grâce
Jacob-Jenkins cannot resist the final coup de grâce on this tragic, racist, family legacy that is blowing up in their faces with regard to recouping money. Bo states the land cannot even be sold without dealing with the two cemeteries, so the property isn’t worth much. Secondly, Franz,, to “cleanse himself and get in good with his family,” throws himself and the photos into the pond by the slave cemetery before he knows they might be valuable. The photos are destroyed; the money up in smoke. This family can’t win for losing. Have the spirits of the dead effectively prevented any benefit to a family with its violent legacy of slavery and lynchings, as karma takes its recompense and the estate goes into receivership?
River, who has from the start been wary of the spirits on the place and has sensed “a presence” in the mansion, is used by Jacobs-Jenkins to validate this possibility that the spirits of lynched, enslaved African-Americans exact their karmic retribution. Additionally, the playwright and director’s vision reveal that such spirits may seek vengeance until the family expiates the bloodshed and torment their forebears have wreaked on the Black population on their lands. Thus far the current generation hasn’t and the siblings are a wreck.
The tragedy of blindness is on everyone in this family, who ignores the significance of those murdered, lynched, abused and oppressed. The lives of those in the slave cemetery and those in the photo album are like the lives of Blacks across the South, who were and are still being appropriated for money on the covert market of “lynching” items that white, terrorist racists find “quaint,” “cool” and “prize-worthy” for trading. It is an unacceptable criminal abomination that must not be normalized. It still is at what cost?
The siblings abandon the mansion and its contents which nature takes over and destroys through the decades as it collapses and a final haunting symbol emerges in the mansion center stage. It is a huge tree open to interpretation. It is representative of the lynchings in the photograph album which must be accounted for.
An amazing conclusion
The conclusion after the blighted family members have left, never to see each other again, is an amazing scenic feat. A tree rises from the mansion floor effected by the amazing scenic designers, dots. Neugebauer’s vision with dots’ execution of the house symbolically shattering as the tree rises up from the foundation of racial hatred, brings together Jacobs-Jenkins’ themes. They warn that despite assuming all is well, recompense will continue to be exacted for historic racial bloodshed and murder. As this family has a legacy of it and refuses to confront it, a bill for the bloodshed will be delivered on them and future generations, via psychosis, financial ruin, addiction etc. Karma is a bitch.
The play is exceptional in its themes and important in its significance about recognizing and not normalizing racial murder and lawlessness as the family tends to do when their father’s hidden life uplifts it. The characterizations serve the themes; the themes don’t arise from the characters. At times the dialogue is contrived to be humorous, especially as the playwright has stylized these individuals as types. Toni’s character is drawn as sardonic, insulting, shrewish and one-note.
The reason why the production gets away with the contrivances is because the director’s staging is perfection, the technical creative team is superbly coherent in conveying her vision. Most importantly, the actors are incredible, individually and as an ensemble. They flesh out and inhabit these unlikable individuals and make them watchable and horridly humorous. Paulson brings her own star quality and beauty to the role so we dismiss Toni’s obnoxiousness, until as with all of them, their faults gradually clarify and deaden them. Then, we reach the point of no return.
By the end we could care less that Toni declares herself dead to the others as they are dead to her. We watch as Bo weeps and questions why he cries. We assume that Franz will continue in his lost state with River directing him until she gets fed up. And Toni sums up what each of the siblings is thinking. She affirms this is who she is with them, implying they “make her” this way and she doesn’t like herself as a result. It is the same for Bo and Franz, who aren’t particularly happy with themselves. Neither do we empathize with any of them because they don’t acknowledge their legacy, they dismiss it or run from it. As their ancestors “threw away” Black generations, so these individuals in self-torment, “throw away” themselves…a tragedy.
This family is the problem and not the solution which is hard won. And as the themes imply, there must be recognition of the horrors of murder and reparations must be attempted. Karma is taking its toll. The sooner the crimes and injustice are recognized, the better for all who have a legacy of violence as this family does. Regardless of how disconnected they think they are from it, they are suffering and will suffer until the injustice is made right.
Kudos to the creative team not identified above. These include Dede Ayite (costume design) and Jane Cox (lighting design). This is not one to miss in its profound themes about the South, about normalizing crimes, and dismissing their historical significance and impact on us today.
Appropriate, two hours thirty minutes with one intermission at the Helen Hayes Theater, 240 W 44th St. between 7th and 8th. https://cart.2st.com/events/?view=calendar&startDate=2024-1
‘The Comeuppance,’ a Pre-Reunion Reunion of Five Friends and Death, Theater Review
In The Comeuppance by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, directed by Eric Ting, old friends meet for a pre-reunion reunion at the home of Ursula (the superb Britney Bradford), who has organized a party to celebrate before she sends off friends to their twentieth reunion. In an extension of its World Premiere at the Signature Theatre, the comedy with somber, stark elements was extended until July 9th by popular demand.
Jacobs-Jenkins’ (Appropriate, An Octoroon) themes are timely. The ensemble was spot-on authentic and natural. In his two hour play with no intermission millennials admit the consequences of living with unsound decisions made in the less scrupulous years of their youth. Sooner or later, there is a “comeuppance.” One cannot escape the inevitability of oneself and one’s mortality, as Death, who like a sylph inhabits each of the characters, periodically reminds us.
To effect this principle theme of death in life and the transience of all things, Jacobs-Jenkins places thirty-somethings in a backyard with drinks, weed and a loaded, shared past. They once were part of a high school friend group called M.E.R.G.E.: Multi Ethnic Reject Group. Jacobs-Jenkins allows them to go at each other (Emilio’s bitterness is apparent), as they bond over a perceived closeness, which may not have existed after all.
But first, Death introduces himself after slipping into the soul of the protagonist Emilio (Caleb Eberhardt), who has the most difficult time struggling to let the past remain in the past so he can create a better life for himself. As he does with all the characters, Death speaks through Emilio. He warns the audience he is always lurking in omnipotence, with a complete understanding of who human beings are, including the audience members, which he crudely, fearfully reminds us of, once more at the conclusion.
Since last they met, Emilio, Caitlin (Susannah Flood), Paco (Bobby Moreno) and Kristina (Shannon Tyo) have established careers, been to war, gotten married and had kids. Each in their own way has confronted loss, confusion, cultural chaos and most recently COVID-19. We learn that all have been under an emotional siege. Some are sustaining the sociopolitical chaos that Emilio points out better than others, as they either ignore it, reflect upon it, or allow their own lives and difficulties to blot it out of their consideration.
Interestingly, the generous Ursula, whose home, inherited after her grandmother’s death, has been offered up for the celebration, becomes the first to manifest the ravages of millennial time and aging. She has lost her sight in one eye, having contracted diabetes. She tells the others that she is not up to going to the reunion and they may stay as long as they like at her party.
As Emilio, Caitlin and Ursula wait for the others, Emilio’s irritability spills out in humor against Caitlin, whom he once dated in high school. She has married an older man who is a Trumper, which upsets Emilio. Their two children her husband has from a first marriage appear to be doing well: one is finishing college, the other is beginning a career. Thanks to the actors who present their characters with moment, as the characters cath up their lives, the segment never completely falls into tedium. The characters reacquaint as they step into familiarity with Ursula reminding them of M.E.R.G.E codes they used in high school.
During this segment Death manifests a presence in the monologues from Ursula and Caitlin. They heighten their soul revelations and reflect another aspect of their ethos that is not apparent on the surface.
When Kristina, a doctor with “so many kids” arrives bringing her cousin Paco, who once dated Caitlin and treated her badly, the hilarity increases. It is driven to its peak with the characters’ fronting as a means of getting their “land legs” with each other. By this point the drinks and weed have kicked in and Emilio confronts Paco. whom he clearly distrusts and despises. More revelations erupt and we note Paco’s and Kristina’s individual unhappiness. Once again, Death inhabits Kristina and Paco and expresses their soul’s interior.
Throughout the play Jacob-Jenkins contrasts the material realm and the illusory fitted by human delusion that these individuals have “all the time in creation” to live their lives against the immutable truth of life’s impermanence. Speaking with quietude and without passion, Death assures us he “has their number.” He matter-of-factly reminds us that entropy is king. Things fall apart; human bodies, human relationships, all we hold dear is smothered in half-truths and lies, for we die.
Then the limo arrives and with it well-worked confusion. Ursula goes off to the reunion that Emilio never attends. With the door locked against him and all his buddies gone, he sleeps on the porch, a hapless, solitary and alone soul who needs to “get himself together” emotionally, expiate the past and forgive himself for his failings.
When Ursula returns, we learn the extent of the lies of omission as Eberhardt’s Emilio allows the truth to flow and Ursula shares with him what she couldn’t reveal before. Then Death through Emilio takes his final “comeuppance.” While she “sleeps in her mind” he expresses that his target is Ursula in the immediate future. He discusses that how she will end up is exactly as her friend Caitlin fears. Despite Emilio’s offering to marry and take care of her, Ursula puts him off because she has someone. It turns out, it’s another poor decision for both of them.
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins has woven an interesting conceptual piece that is uneven especially in segments where there is too much ancillary discussion by characters. There is an overabundance of unnecessary detail that impede the forward momentum of the dynamic that occurs on the porch of their lives. In these sections, I dropped out. Perhaps wise editing would make the segments more vital and immediate.
Nevertheless, the actors are terrific. They make the most of the unevenness that drives the play toward the characters’ acknowledgement of duality: of experiencing life and watching and reflecting oneself living it in the knowledge that they are mortal.
The difficulty of this duality is dealing with the reality of Death. In the play it is animated through the characters for our benefit. However, in their lives, it is ever-present in the form of gun massacres, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, political subterfuge and sabotage in January 6th which attempted to signal in the “death” of our democracy. All of these, Death’s cultural possessions, have brought the characters’ millennial generation to the brink, Emilio acknowledges. That and their body’s frailty is their comeuppance, Ursula suggests.
Though each generation has had its cataclysms, it is the millennials “no way out” that Emilio especially confronts while the others seem to ignore it, save Ursula. Unfortunately, our culture doesn’t do death well and entertainment capitalizes on its particularly gruesome features in the proliferation of horror stories and films. Jacobs-Jenkins counters this aspect, making it a homely creation of back porches. And as he reminds us no one “gets out alive,” at least there is humor. We can laugh on our way out of life’s conundrums, miseries toward Death’s grasp.
Look for this play to be produced elsewhere. And check out their website for more information at https://signaturetheatre.org/
CAROLE DI TOSTI 