Appropriate: The Unbearable Whiteness of Being

The word “appropriate” can be pronounced (according to the American Heritage dictionary) either as an adjective “(ə-prō′prē-ĭt)” meaning “suitable for a particular person, condition, occasion, or place; fitting” or as a verb “(ə-prō′prē-āt′)” meaning “to take possession of or make use of exclusively for oneself, often without permission.” The ambiguity is deliberate in the title of a work by black playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins that launches from the well-worn dramatic trope of a white family in the American South, assembling after the death of their patriarch whose Arkansas plantation estate must be put up for sale.

The core of the family are his three adult children, “Antoinette ‘Toni’ Lafayette” (Phyllis Kay), “Beauregarde ‘Bo’ Lafayette” (Fred Sullivan, Jr.) and “François ‘Franz/Frank’ Lafayette” (Mauro Hantman). Accompanying them for a final stay in the now-decrepit mansion house are Toni’s teenaged son “Rhys Thurston” (Alec J. Weinberg) and Frank’s fiancée “River Rayner” (Marina Morrisey), as well as Bo’s wife “Rachel Kramer-Lafayette” (Angela Brazil), Bo’s teen daughter “Cassidy ‘Cassie’ Kramer-Lafayette” (Emeline Easton) and Bo’s pre-teen son “Ainsley Kramer-Lafayette” (Ronin W. Scott).

This is a family with more skeletons in their closets than are likely buried in the two historical graveyards on each side of the big house, one for white masters and the other for black slaves. The entire family dislikes the South: Toni having been trapped there by her career as a teacher despite an advanced education; Bo having graduated from Yale and regarding his hometown as Washington, DC, where the family lived for a time while their father, a high-powered Harvard Law School alumnus, was rumored to be on the short list for a seat on the Supreme Court; and Frank having taken off for the North and estranged himself from the family for 10 years. They are, in other words, cursed by their privileged upbringing.

It’s certainly possible to enjoy Appropriate having no prior familiarity with theater, but there are a lot of subtle and not-so-subtle allusions to other works. There are obvious but superficial parallels to A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams: the French names (which make sense in Streetcar because it is set in New Orleans), the neurotic school teachers and other things best left unmentioned. (It won the Sundance Institute Tennessee Williams Award.) Jacobs-Jenkins is effectively setting up the audience, toying with expectations by misdirection via foreshadowing, much as a magician performs sleight of hand. That’s not an entirely new concept: Clybourne Park by Bruce Norris emerges as a 21^st Century perspective on the events next door to the 1950s classic A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, and probably the most famous example is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard that takes places alongside the action of Hamlet. But Appropriate takes the idea further, riffing on the whole vast literature of the American South.

Early in the play, the children find among their late father’s possessions an album of photos and postcards depicting lynchings of black people. In the decades following the American Civil War, racially motivated extrajudicial murders, usually by hanging, were used by white mobs to terrorize and control the black population. Such “lynchings” were often public events with a festival atmosphere and cheering crowds, and, in the age of the World Wide Web, the family quickly learn that hawkers without fear of consequences would produce and sell pictures of the victims and their killers like hunting trophies. But why did their father have such an album? Was it his? Did he inherit it as a family heirloom? Or did he just buy it as a collector’s item? Exploring the mystery of the album throws the family into chaos and begins to tear it apart.

From a studied unoriginality – all of the characters are ultimately archetypes of Southern literature – Trinity Rep’s Appropriate synthesizes a remarkably original result, one of the most enjoyable productions of the year. You know the play is heading toward a screaming match and fight among the siblings, but getting there is a pretty good ride. Kay as Toni is outstanding, a crazy person because everything and everybody conspires to make her crazy. Hantman fully embraces Frank as by far the craziest character, and it’s unclear whether Morrisey as the New-Age-y River is making him more crazy or less. Brazil plays Rachel as the most traditional Southerner of the bunch, trying to be a helpful homemaker and supportive wife, although ironically the character is from New York City and Jewish. Sullivan as Bo must fill the void left by the death of his father, and he gets some of the best lines in the play. The younger characters are not mere window-dressing, with Easton as Cassidy and Weinberg as Rhys angst-filled and somewhat self-destructive. Scott as the youngest, Ainsley, deftly captures and shocks the audience in one particularly notable scene.

Trinity’s set by Sara Brown deserves praise for immersing the audience into a deteriorating and collapsing hoarder’s mess, complete with bales labeled “cotton” presumably left over from the era when the plantation was a working agricultural enterprise rather than an abortive bed-and-breakfast. Indeed, it is a consistent theme in the play that nothing really works anymore.

Appropriate is a worthy follow-on to Trinity Rep’s explorations of race in To Kill a Mockingbird and Blues for Mister Charlie last season. It’s certainly more playful and humorous than those, albeit about dark subject matter. Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is in the process of collecting every major award possible for a modern American playwright, including the 2011 Paula Vogel Award (named after the long-serving Brown University faculty member) and a few weeks ago winning a 2016 MacArthur Fellowship, commonly known as a “Genius Award.”

Appropriate, directed by Brian Mertes, Trinity Rep, 201 Washington St, PVD. Telephone: 401-351-4242; Web: trinityrep.com/Online/default.asp?BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::permalink=appropriate Tickets: trinityrep.com/Online/default.asp?doWork::WScontent::loadArticle=Load&BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::article_id=B8FBAD1F-E6CB-4748-B0BB-36292E0CD108
Tue (11/1), Wed (10/19*, 10/26, 11/2*), Thu (10/20, 10/27, 11/3), Fri (10/28, 11/4), Sat (10/22*, 10/29, 11/5) at 7:30pm (* also 2pm); Sun (10/23**, 10/30**, 11/6) at 2pm (** also 7:30pm). About 3h including two intermissions. Handicap accessible.