PURPOSE: It's not just a song from Avenue Q anymore...
A "Critwink" from the Intelligent Showmosexual
*In case you missed it: “critwinks” are mini-reviews turned out in a single draft
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It’s funny: there’s nothing I love more than seeing live theatre, and yet one of the first things I invariably do upon arrival at a show is ask an usher what its running time is. If they don’t say something like, “90 minutes, no intermission,” I start to worry. There’s a large part of me that doesn’t want to be anywhere but a theater, but there’s also a smaller part of me that desperately wants the evening to end…mostly so I can go home, put on soft clothes, and watch an episode of some television show I’ve already seen two dozen times before.
When I arrived at the Hayes for a recent performance of Purpose and my standard question was answered with “2 hours 55 minutes,” I was almost overcome with dread. Lately, my job has been particularly stressful and demanding; so, I warned my friend that depending on what popped up on my phone after the end of the first act—not to mention the quality of everything that preceded it—I might make an early exit. Instead, when the lights turned on, the only thing I desperately wanted to end was intermission.
To a large extent, Purpose is a familiar—and, for playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, surprisingly conventional—play: a family gathers for a special occasion, secrets are unearthed, and soon people or situations are revealed to be something other than they initially seem. It follows Nazareth “Naz” Jasper (Jon Michael Hill), the guarded and possibly neurodivergent son of a civil rights legend (Harry Lennix), who has returned home for the belated birthday celebration of his mother (LaTanya Richardson Jackson). The festivities were postponed to coincide with the prison release of his brother “Junior” (Glenn Davis), a former state senator guilty of embezzlement, even though Junior’s wife (Alana Arenas) is soon to be incarcerated as his accomplice. When Naz’s friend Aziza (Kara Young) arrives to return a forgotten charger, her presence and gaze as an outsider change everything.
Admittedly, “party gone wrong” is one of my favorite genres, especially when it involves family, but Purpose is an exceptionally well-done addition to the canon, in no small part because Jacobs-Jenkins is so damn funny. His razor-sharp dialogue is crafted with such wit and honesty, it starts not to matter that the plot is fairly predictable. There were times when Purpose had me laughing as hard as I did at Oh, Mary!. In the latter play, the hilarity comes from ridiculous absurdism; here, by contrast, it comes from the brutal reality created by Jacobs-Jenkins, director Phylicia Rashad, and their excellent cast. And it is indeed brutal because, as funny as the play is, it grapples with a lot of serious issues, including race, religion, mental illness, queerness, and searching for…well…purpose.
Though it feels sort of strange to say, “Finally, a play about the wealthy!”, it would be disingenuous not to recognize that Jacobs-Jenkins also finds new permutations on the theme by focusing on an affluent Black family. Contemporary kitchen sink realism, especially on Broadway, tends to favor rich white folk or working-class Black folk. While Purpose offers a rarer and welcome form of representation, it is not just representation for representation’s sake. Its exploration of the Jasper family provides a window into the pressures of Black excellence that will be new to many and thought-provoking to even more. In a seeming nod to the complicated legacies that bad men who do good work can leave in their wake, the set is prominently adorned with the same painting that Rashad’s character purchased on The Cosby Show and then hung in the Huxtables’ home for the duration of the sitcom’s run.
Given the production’s origins at Steppenwolf, it should come as no surprise that the rich material is expertly mined for meaning by a superb ensemble cast, all but two of whom were part of its premiere. Even if Jacobs-Jenkins relies a bit too heavily on his narration to tell us what would be more interesting to see, Hill expertly and effortlessly anchors the production. He is particularly impressive in delineating the version of Naz the audience gets to see from the version the other characters see. As Junior, Steppenwolf co-artistic director Davis is wildly charismatic, and so full of both bravado and longing that you don’t know if you want to shake him or cradle him. As his not quite estranged wife, Arenas makes an explosive Broadway debut, confidently stealing every scene she’s in. Her rage is so palpable—and so uproarious—that, as different as their vehicles were, she reminded me of Linda Lavin in The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife (perhaps my all-time favorite performance in a comedy) because the laughter they both elicited came from such an authentic sense of fury.
Lennix is a wonderfully imposing patriarch, believable as both a man who galvanized the civil rights movement and a father whose expectations may have broken his children. In unexpectedly quiet scenes near the end of the play, he convincingly alternates between tenderness and unctuousness in a matter of minutes. It’s a credit to his facility as an actor that these changes seem simultaneously surprising and totally in-character. Audience-favorite Jackson’s performance struck me as a bit heavy-handed, but she effectively conveys her character’s many facets. Still, it’s hard not to wonder what director Rashad would have done with the role.
And then there’s Young who, against all showbiz odds, continues a remarkable Broadway hot streak that began in 2021 with a Tony-nominated debut in Clyde’s, continued in 2022 with another Tony-nominated turn in Cost of Living, and then included a deserving Tony win for her hysterical 2023-2024 run in Purlie Victorious. She again proves herself to be as dynamic as she is natural, the kind of actor whom you never catch acting.
There’s a fantastic book called Top of the Rock: The Rise and Fall of Must See TV. It is an oral history of NBC’s run of megahits from the 1980s to 1990s, including shows like Cheers, Seinfeld, and, yes, The Cosby Show. In a discussion alluding to network concerns that a property could be too niche, Bill Cosby is remembered as having said, “‘The smaller you make it, the more universal it is.’”
And that’s the amazing thing about art. I am not Black. I am not rich. I am not neurodivergent. I am not from a family of activists or politicians. And yet the profound specificity of Purpose allowed me to see myself and my loved ones in the play, thus allowing me to learn about myself and my loved ones, not to mention individuals who tick the boxes that I don’t. That, one could argue, is theatre’s ultimate—I’m SORRY…I *have* to say it—purpose
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a guide to ticket-buying
With my TDF membership, I paid $55 for a center front mezzanine seat (row E). The view was good, but with so many excellent performances, I found myself wishing I’d been seated closer so I could observe more detail in the acting.
I recently learned about this show! Didn’t know anything about it, just saw the tickets for sale but now I’m interested. Affluent black family representation is such a turn on 🤪 hahaha