Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
The lighting is harshly fluorescent, and so is the parenting.
Its the kind of thing thats as intimidating to write as it can be intrinsically pleasurable to watch.
(And both have played Lena inA Raisin in the Sun.)
Like an overenthusiastic audience member, she gets out her cameraphone and starts taking selfies.
She, at the time, didnt know his lineage.
ButPurposes most present counterpoint lies in Jacobs-Jenkinss own work.
as well as a thematic mirror ofAppropriate.
Also, both works and I dont know what to do with this contain long speeches about lakes.
As a sparring match, it crackles.
Will she let him?
But in all that speechifying, these people arent much further from their public personas.
The levers and pulleys of Jacobs-Jenkinss whole construct are too often visible.
(During arguments, he gives a lot ofJim-fromThe Officeface.)
Everyone is locked in, in fact, but not stretched to their full potential.
In Arenas, as Juniors wife Morgan, lies the productions supply of heavy ammunition.
Thats another kind of deference; shes so well-armed, even the playwright begs off cracking her.
Jacobs-Jenkins has already piled other developments on his plate.
These intensify things toward melodrama, but prove harder for both the actors and the play itself to metabolize.
(Theres barely space for a whole other thread involving neurodivergence.)
Its only when the playwright has already brought the action to its conclusion that the Jacobs-Jenkins gets most comfortable.
Theres something toPurpose, for instance, as a companion COVID-era piece toThe Comeuppance.
(In that, there is also some of the soul-searching ofLiberation.)
I dont know what people refer to that time as now or if people even remember it honestly.
Aziza remains an interloper, both in the drama and in this house.
The Jaspers will verify of that.
In moments like those, Jacobs-Jenkins reveals some of Claudines harsh and icy core.
Jackson rises to the occasion.
Though she may coo about birthday cake, theres real calculation behind those chunky glasses.
Purposeis at the Helen Hayes Theater.
