A Review by Keri Tombazian
When the curtain came down opening night at the Mark Taper Forum on Branden Jacobs-Jenkins award winning play, Appropriate, I was both enthralled and perplexed. Enthralled because there is so much to love about this rich play and stunning production, perplexed because with so much talent on and off stage something wasn’t quite right. So, I went back and saw it a second time before writing this review; it deserved it. Some of the missteps of opening night had, indeed, worked themselves out by Thursday night. The actors had settled down and into their voices, they executed the ambitious choreography of a third-act fight sequence with much needed ease, and they listened to one another with more authentic stillness than opening-night-jitters allowed.
Developed in part at Sundance Institute, and world premiered at the esteemed Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, this tale of a dysfunctional Southern American family reuniting at the death of the family patriarch has been compared to August Osage County. True, they both take place in the south, in the heat, with anger and dysfunction aplenty, but there the comparisons end. Jenkins has sketched a complex terrain in his Obie Award winning Best New American Play. Strong themes of the fidelity of memory, the sins of the father, blame, shame, and forgiveness all are front and center. No plot spoilers in this review – the unfolding of the story with its twists and turns ought to be seen without much foreknowledge.
Appropriate boasts a cast whose collective credits include television, film, and theatre both on and Off-Broadway. The actors are rewarded on the Taper stage with material that is any actor’s dream. Every character is endowed with wonderful words in dense monologues, multiple chances to spar with each with another, and clearly drawn personas, beginning with newly sober prodigal son, Frank Lafayette (Robert Beitzel). It is not enough to say that Beitzel is nuanced and specific; he is flat out dear. Like a three-legged dog showing his family how well he has learned to run, Frank is a character who, in lesser hands, might devolve into cartoon. The vulnerability and sincerity of Beitzel’s very person makes you want to jump on stage and cold-cock his mean, hardened, bitch of a sister.
Toni Lafayette (Melora Hardin) is the embodiment of bitter, angry, and mean to the core. The only tiny glimpse of humanity that peeks through her battered soul is the love of her son. Melora Hardin’s command of body and language, along with those eyes through which all of herself is expressed, are well known to audiences. As Jan on The Office, and now as Tammy Cashman in the Amazon series, Transparent, Hardin has long since proven her artistry. It seems, then, that Director Eric Ting, who otherwise guides this production through deep valleys and over high arches, pointed Hardin in one single shrill direction, as though there is no other way to express Toni’s pain, giving her only two brushes with which to paint. The text allows for more.
In addition, when people return to our places of origin, our language and spoken affect fall into old patterns and sounds. This was missing from Ting’s vision. The essence of the South was missing.
The final scene of Appropriate is some of the best theatrical staging seen in recent Los Angeles theatre history, with beautiful effects preceded by a heart-ripping performance by David Bishens as Bo Lafayette, who is spot on from his first line of dialogue to his last.
Frank’s fiancé, River (Zarah Mahler) is a clever combination of wise and a little whacky. Mahler fits River’s complexity as well as she does her revealing costumes (great work by Laura Bauer). Bo’s wife, Rachel (Missy Yager) is the keeper of the audience’s internal voice. Fresh and sincere, Yager delivers with perfect volume and velocity. What a delight of an actress.
Rounding out the cast are Will Tranfo and Grace Kaufman. Tranfo walks a fine line of brooding young man and longing little boy (and tip of the hat for a surprising moment well played). Grace Kaufman is the offspring of actor parents and her good stock shows. She brings no ounce of stereotype to thirteen-year-old Cassidy (although some of her lines are written with a few unnecessary stereotypical phrases). In a poignant monologue about the song of the cicadas, Kaufman never steps over the line of emotionality but lets the words work their magic.
Some of the problems witnessed opening night persist and are in the hands of the playwright. There are too many endings that need to be consolidated in the last act. In addition, though it serves to leave some (perhaps most) things unanswered, the author gives little satisfaction in so much as one of the main characters’ concluding moments. Rumor has it that changes to the script were being made up until previews. Perhaps there is room to make some small revisions. That said, it bears repeating: the staging of the final montage of this play is triumph of design (Mimi Lien) and execution of writing.
I am glad I was moved to see Appropriate a second time. See this play before it gets away.
Photo cred: https://www.centertheatregroup.org/tickets/mark-taper-forum/2015/appropriate/