DUPLICITY & DENIAL IN BRANDEN JACOBS JENKINS' "APPROPRIATE" & "PURPOSE"

At the end of 2023 I saw the current expertly cast revival of Branden Jacobs Jenkins' "Appropriate" on Broadway.  It was the only new drama playing on Broadway at the time, and thankfully it was being welcomed by sold out audiences.

Last week I saw the premiere production of Mr. Jenkins' new play "Purpose" at Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago, and it is a triumph both artistically speaking and with audiences in Chicago.  This play seems destined to play Broadway, assuming Broadway remains a place where serious and well written dramas can be mounted.

What struck me about seeing both Jenkins plays within a relatively concurrent time period is how they are both tackling similar themes albeit in very different plot environments.  "Appropriate" focuses on a dysfunctional southern US raised white family coming to terms with its racist past and its legacy.  By contrast, "Purpose" zeros in on a well known Chicago black family whose patriarch is a civil rights icon as the family comes to terms with the disconnect between its public image and its private dysfunction.

Both plays have several female characters that are outsiders to the nuclear family units, and in both plays these outsider characters get drawn into and entangled into the family dysfunction.  Both are wildly funny but with a dramatic bite that has become a signature of Mr. Jenkins' plays.  I see these two plays as two sides of the same coin, and to me they are Jenkins' "D&D" plays, as central to both are the duplicity and denial of the family units depicted in each.

The current Broadway revival of "Appropriate" is as good as the smashing 2013 premiere NY production at Signature Theater, and the Steppenwolf premiere of "Purpose" has a terrific cast (with special mention owed to the pitch perfect Jon Michael Hill, Tamara Tunie and Alana Arenas).  If, as I suspect, "Purpose" is mounted on Broadway I would prefer to see it directed with a bit more directorial flash and my dream cast would include the three actors mentioned above, with Denzel Washington stepping in as Solomon Jasper in order to make the run the box office smash it deserves to be.

One day, I hope to attend a marathon performance somewhere of Mr. Jenkins' "D&D" plays, and I would venture that they can be seen in any order, but ideally both be seen in the same day of beautifully written and exciting theater.