By Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
The Drama
Aziza (Sisi Stringer) has just dropped off her friend, Nazareth (Naz) Jasper (Tinashe Mangwana), home in Chicago – after an eight-hour drive from Niagara Falls – but she returns because Naz left his phone charger into her car.
Despite wanting to return home to NYC, Aziza is persuaded by Naz’s mother, Claudine (Deni Gordon), to stay the night in the Jasper house.
Soon, Aziza is bustling around the spacious living room, taking selfies and fan-girling in general, when the penny drops that her friend’s father is prominent civil rights campaigner, Solomon Jasper (Marcus Hamilton).
Solomon marched with Martin Luther King and John Lewis at Selma. He reputedly played checkers with MLK in the days before his assassination. One of Aziza’s prized childhood memories is seeing Solomon’s picture hanging in a gallery with other prominent figures from the civil rights movement.
But, as the story unfolds, Aziza’s sanitised, idealised and damn near-immortalised image of Solomon Jasper and his family begins to slip. The landslide of division and derision starts slowly but quickly accelerates to a point where redemption may become impossible.
Solomon’s other son, Solomon Junior (Maurice Marvel Meredith), has just been released from prison for campaign-finance fraud. He’s tarnished the name his father gave him. Junior’s wife, Morgan (Grace Bentley-Tsibuah), is about to start her sentence for her role in the same fraud; an arrangement negotiated to allow one parent to be free to raise their developmentally challenged child.
Then there’s Nazareth and his own idiosyncrasies. How do they align with his prominent father’s preachings? And is Solomon the paragon Aziza thought him to be? What other secrets simmer just below the saintly surface?
What a Compelling Production!
The family gathering – with or without the outside observer – which quickly unravels into a torrent of accusations and counter-accusations, as secrets are revealed, is as old a story-telling itself.
But this version of that story is awfully well told.
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ script is brilliant. The controversies feel real. The reactions are understandable. Some disputes get resolved. Others do not. But each outcome is earned.
The acting, too, is first-rate. I won’t single any particular actor out, on this occasion, because this was a true ensemble piece. Needless to say that each of the comic moments were perfectly timed and the conflict felt very real, right down to the screaming and the occasional physical violence.
Finally, the set design was spectacular and worthy of a bigger stage.
What My Eyebrows Told Me
The true measure of how much I enjoyed Purpose is that the three-hour run time (including interval) flew by, such was my immersion in the unfolding story.
The first Act ended on such an exciting note – following a truly exhilarating screaming match over the dinner table – that my heart was racing throughout intermission.
My eyebrows sailed in a HIGH ARCH throughout.
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