Ruth Leon’s New York’s Pocket Theatre Review

Appropriate – Belasco Theatre
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Call me shallow, but I need someone to root for. I need at least one character in a play who, if I met them, would be worth my time, one person I’d be interested to know, one kindred spirit whose welfare and future I care about. My problem with Appropriate, an otherwise admirable play by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins which many Broadway sages are mooting to win the Best Play Tony this year, is that all the people in it are simply awful. My other problem with them is that they all shout a lot and what they are shouting about is always nasty, frequently racist, and often obscene.

Bo, Frank, and Toni are the siblings who gather at their recently dead patriarch’s Arkansas house to divide up the spoils, pick at the family;s prejudices and hatreds, and dissect the political and personal attitudes of their dreadful father who, thankfully, is dead and doesn’t appear here. With their assorted spouses and significant others, along with their children, all appalling in different ways, they don’t so much meet as collide in destructive and painful ways.

There is fine work from a very experienced cast, led by Sarah Paulson as Toni, and all the actors, including the awful children (who are not above a bit of blackmail) are excellent. You can only leave the theatre relieved that you don’t know anyone like them.

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