Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Branden Jacobs-Jenkins spiky family drama APPROPRIATE ferociously takes Broadway by storm

• By drediman
• February 29, 2024
• No Comments

Last night, I finally had the opportunity to catch up with the Second Stage production of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ sensational 2014 play Appropriate, which is currently playing on Broadway at the Hayes Theater. Set in a former plantation house in Alabama, Jacobs-Jenkins’ spiky play tells the story of three siblings — and their respective families — who convene upon the death of their father. In the process of settling the estate, they come upon a problematic artifact or two (no spoilers here), the discovery of which unleashes a chain of events that threaten to bring down the family and the very foundations of their Southern ancestral home.

I had originally seen the play in an Off-Broadway staging courtesy of Signature Theatre Company. That was about a decade ago, which were vastly different times. As such, it’s fascinating to revisit Appropriate — unsurprisingly, the wickedly entertaining and deeply disturbing work registers differently on the tragicomic spectrum now than it did back then. Too boot, the playwright — who is just now making his belated debut on the Main Stem — has revised the script, recalibrating the narrative, making it both sharper and stealthier in its audacious provocations. The result is a finely tuned version of the play that’s taken Broadway by storm as one of the hottest tickets in town (after concluding its limited run at the Hayes this week, the production will be transferring to the Belasco Theatre for a commercial run at the end of March). In premise and blistering melodramatic cadence, Appropriate calls to mind Tracy Letts’ popular Pulitzer Prize-winning August: Osage County (in its mysteries and gothic sensibility, there are also strains of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher). But instead of Letts’ admittedly thrilling histrionics for histrionics sake motivation, Jacobs-Jenkins uses sensationalism to astutely and ferociously parody the notion of American legacy at large.

As with the 2014 Off-Broadway production, the current Broadway edition of the work has been once again directed with a keen eye by Lila Neugebauer. Staged on a towering two level set by the dots design collective (the imposing interior is a character unto itself), her brisk, firing-on-all-cylinders production brings a deceptively light touch to the proceedings, camouflaging the insidious underpinnings of the play. Then there are the rip-roaring performances, starting with screen star Sarah Paulson as the toxic Toni, the eldest of the three siblings. It’s a caustic, venomous performance that shocks as much as it awes. Not that her younger brothers Bo and Frank — played with frightening naturalism by Corey Stoll and Michael Esper — are any better. Collectively, they (and their families) conjure the worst aspects of the crumbling experiment that is America.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

APPROPRIATE
Broadway, Play
Second Stage at The Hayes Theater
2 hours, 45 minutes (with one intermission)
Through March 3 (the play reopens at the Belasco Theatre on March 25)