I read Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' award-winning play Appropriate some months back and have let its searing story of race, retribution, familial dysfunction and denial marinate.
The 2023 Broadway revival of Appropriate, which was first staged in 2013, won a Tony. Jacobs-Jenkins is a MacArthur Fellow, a true genius. I've not read Jacobs-Jenkins' other works but his status as a theatrical savant is supported by this one piece alone.
A white Arkansas family meets at the homestead to settle accounts on the property, divide up whatever spoils they are able to realize, and go their decidely separate, bitter ways. While going through the detritus of the life of their recently departed patriarch, they discover hideous photographs of lynchings in an album. Additionally, unmarked graves are found on the property.
The already fractured family grows even more so as they debate what's to be done with the property in light of the discoveries. Old resentments are resurrected, and the three central siblings -- a domineering older sister and her two brothers -- spin out of control -- their spouses, companions and children tossed about and variously used as shields and deflectors.
It's a brutal and devastating work that Jacobs-Jenkins closes with the set falling into ruin in front of the audience.
The metaphor is stark and pointed and brilliant and real -- and now.
I love that the play's title, Appropriate, can be read as either "proper" or "theft," depending on one's disposition, where one stands in relation to what is going on.
Again. How fitting.
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