A powerful play on family and racism
The estranged members of the Lafayette family have gathered at the cluttered, neglected home of their deceased patriarch, whose framed formal portrait oversees the action. In judicial robes, he looks distinguished, like every official image of every white male authority figure. Their father was a respected citizen in this small Southern town.
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He was also the source of lasting racism that poisoned his descendants and infects them still.
At the first mention of Daddy’s plantation — that word should trigger something in any American — we’re in tricky territory. We know we’re in for an examination of cultural dysfunction beyond the usual family drama.
In Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ “Appropriate” — try it on as either adjective or verb; the title is meant to spark questions about its dual meaning — the plantation is invoked to set the scene and invite the ghosts. This isn’t just any dysfunctional family reunion at an unkempt old house. It’s not a farm or a ranch. It’s a plantation, unsuccessfully reimagined as a B&B.
Discussing real estate, the Lafayette offspring casually note the two graveyards on the site aren’t good for property values. The unmarked graves are those of the slaves.
Each of the three siblings is
furious in a different way, some more self-destructive than others. Clearly, the sins of the father have been visited upon each of the kids.
Playwright Jacobs-Jenkins, who is African-American, illustrates the lasting effects of the nation’s original sin by telling his story through exclusively white characters.
The family has gathered at the Arkansas plantation to sort through Dad’s things and divvy the estate. The sorting will amount to an inventory of the ghosts of American history, an unpleasant sensation that reverberates like the play’s insistent, recurring sound of cicadas.
They find relics of vile history, specifically a collection of old photographs of lynchings. We don’t need to see them to imagine them; instead, we see the damaged individuals as evidence.
The playwright has drawn on a host of previous family dramas in crafting “Appropriate,” yet the work feels entirely original and upsetting in new ways.
Dee Covington plays Toni, the most angry and possibly craziest of the siblings. (Covington makes this juicy role suitably uncomfortable, by turns screaming, provoking and denying.) As the eldest, she took care of their father until the end, and her resentment fills the house. Toni is divorced with a moody teenage son, Rhys (played by Alec Sarche).
Erik Sandvold portrays Bo, the middle sib, who now lives in New York and is easier to like — yet phenomenally clueless at the same time. Mare Trevathan brings an edginess to the role of Bo’s wife, Rachael, a Brooklyn Jew who always felt uncomfortable around the patriarch. Audrey Graves and Harrison LylesSmith play Bo and Rachael’s kids, respectively, Cassidy and Ainsely.
Sean Scrutchins gives a layered performance as Franz (formerly Frank), the black sheep and youngest of the three Lafayette offspring. He’s been missing for years, and has returned with his spacey/spiritual girlfriend River (Rhianna DeVries) to make apologies.
The father’s connection to the lynchings is debated when the kids find a photo album full of horrific pictures of naked black men. Jars containing body parts — “souvenirs” from lynchings -- are found in the mess of hoarded belongings. Should the kids be protected from the sight of such things? Can the older offspring even tell themselves the truth of what happened and their father’s involvement?
It’s doubly hideous that their first thought is about making money from selling the pictures.
As in so many family dramas (see also Tracy Letts’ “August: Osage County,” now playing at Vintage Theatre), the sniping escalates to reveal sordid secrets. The bitter family fight turns into an extended literal brawl, the show’s least effective moments.
Spirits, like violence, haunt the house, i.e., the country. Just as the Smithsonian likes to call itself “the nation’s attic,” this play examines the relics of history in an accounting of the nation’s soul.
In 2017, as the nation debates the propriety of statues honoring those who fought to preserve the institution of slavery, “Appropriate” asks audiences to understand the hatred, the anger and the pathologies that evolved as a result of the racist past. Eventually, the house buckles under the weight of those emotions, underscoring the metaphor thanks to bold scenic design by Markas Henry. The effect is visceral, reverberating for days afterward.