As some of my loyal readers may know, I absolutely love going to the theater. I try to go at least twice per month, if not more. There are obviously pros and cons to being a theater buff. One of the major cons has to be when a particular play is too long, not well edited or written, or does not resonate with me. One of the pros is that every now and again, you stumble upon a play that moves you so deeply, you think about it for days, weeks, or even years.
Many years ago, in 2014, I saw the play “Appropriate” by Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins at the Signature Theater, a small-ish theater that has three stages and produces some really innovative work, often by playwrights of color. When I tell you I have thought of this play almost weekly for several years, it would be an understatement, so when I saw “Appropriate” would be staged on Broadway, I jumped at the chance.
What fascinated me about this play is that it is about race—the history and legacy of racism in this country, written by a Black playwright—and does not have a single Black person in it. The effectiveness of Jacob-Jenkins’s storytelling is truly gripping on an intellectual and emotional level.
Without giving too much away, the play centers around three siblings who are clearing out their late father’s home in Arkansas when they stumble upon a photo album filled with photographs of lynched Black men. The play takes off from there. The audience, luckily, never sees the photographs, but we are left to envision the horrors through our imaginations—kept in an old gold-bound school photo album, like an album many of us probably had in our homes growing up, filled with pictures of relatives and various stages of our childhood.
The star-studded cast of Sarah Paulson (“12 Years a Slave”), Corey Stoll (“House of Cards”), Elle Fanning (“Maleficent”), and Natali Gold (“Succession”), to name a few, brings a level of detail to the inner workings and tensions of a family processing grief, past traumas and secrets, and a healthy dose of money drama.
The remarkable set transports you to a cluttered and aging Southern plantation and the costumes make each character feel familiar in a way that only the sharp eye of costume designer Dede Ayite (“Malcolm X Opera”) can provide.
“Appropriate” is playing at the Hayes Theater (240 W. 44th Street, New York, N.Y.) until March 3, 2024. I cannot recommend this American drama enough. Jacobs-Jenkins has been one to watch for quite some time and I am so excited that more people will get to experience this brilliant piece of theater.
Christina Greer, Ph.D., is an associate professor at Fordham University; author of “Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream”; and co-host of the podcast FAQ-NYC and host of The Blackest Questions podcast at TheGrio; and a 2023–2024 Moynihan Public Scholars Fellow at CCNY.