Some fine productions have just opened in the last week all around town! Here’s my first choice to kick off the fall theater season!
Omari K. Chancellor in Purpose; photo by Marc J Franklin
PURPOSE at the HUNTINGTON’s Calderwood Pavilion, first made me laugh– then made my head explode. The Huntington continues to astound with its fierce, funny, masterfully executed production of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins cutting-edge Pulitzer Prize-winner! At 2 hours 50 minutes it was overlong–but worth it. What it had to say made me think thoughts I never thought before, and refreshed my take on life. This comedy/drama about a Black American family explores the fallout of a famous preacher/patriarch’s secrets, his expectations for his sons and wife, and how legacy shapes identity in a world which has outrun the old guard.
The cast of Purpose; photo by Marc J Franklin
The action and its layered themes are echoed in Se Hyun Oh’s multi-level, warmly-lit set, history baked into its dark wood. Young Nazareth “Naz” Jasper (a fine Omari K. Chancellor), a soft-spoken nature photographer and divinity school dropout opens the show waxing rhapsodic about lakes and forests. The closing scene, will circle back to this initial snapshot of Naz, a young man enamored of nature, now opening our eyes to even more transcendent vistas. In between, Naz narrates what happens when he and his brother Solomon “Junior” Jasper (a very moving Ugo Chukwu) — newly released from prison, along with his hostile, about-to-be-imprisoned wife Morgan (sharp as a razor Marhadoo Effeh)– return home to the celebrate diva-mom Claudine’s birthday. Phyllis Yvonne Stickney does the matriarch proud in all her pomp and pain.
Omari K. Chancellor, Kalyne Ashley Coleman in Purpose; photo by Marc J Franklin
Enter Naz’s friend Aziza (eyewitness keen Kalyne Ashley Coleman) a lesbian to whom Naz has just donated “genetic material” so she can have a child. But when she suddenly realizes that the quiet, self-identified asexual Naz is actually the son of Black Civil Rights royalty, she’s thunderstruck at the prospect of “being pregnant with Black History!” The line is hilarious and the audience screams with laughter. It also cuts to the quick of the questions raised here. What kind of seed has been planted? Where do we go now that the cultural map is an infinite continuum of choices and possibilities, where identity is fluid and change occurs at light speed all around us? What, if anything, can we cling to?
Ezra Knight, Omari K. Chancellor in Purpose; photo by Marc J Franklin
The play dives in and director Josiah Davis takes us on a jolting, funny, heartbreaking, yet remarkably cohesive ride despite the play’s tonal shifts. There’s a storm outside, a gun in the basement, and a hidden legacy of scandalous behavior, disappointment, and resentment ready to blow. The birthday dinner erupts in a roundelay of conflicts about morality, sexuality, sanity, patriarchy, accountability, and identity in a world which challenges Solomon Jasper’s faith as a brimstone and fire-breathing preacher. Ezra Knight’s performance as Solomon embodies the crumbling of the patriarchy within and without; Solomon’s sins have been revealed and his dreams dashed, but life goes on…so what’s a preacher who’s taken up bee-keeping to do? The final scene with father and son, side by side, facing out to the audience at the edge of the stage and maybe the world, is rich with truths, sweet as honey–and just as indestructible.
MUST SEE PURPOSE— and prepare to have your mind blown! Onstage at the Calderwood Pavilion through October 11!
