REVIEW: Appropriate (Olney Theatre Center)
I’d like to personally thank Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins for accepting Paula Vogel’s previously-held mantel of “DMV Mentioned!!!” Playwrighthood. The Takoma (DC)-raised thespian has been on quite a tear in the American Theatre lately, and his shows tend to mention or take place in the DC area. I was wondering if his acclaimed 2013 play Appropriate would also, given it takes place in rural Arkansas. (It does!)
But the work itself actually has some significant DC roots; one of its earliest productions was at Woolly Mammoth. After a buzzy Broadway revival that notched three Tonys in 2024, it’s returning to the area in an intimate staging up in Olney. If you feel bad about not shelling out the hundreds to go see Sarah Paulsen tear up a stage during that New York run, then great news: Olney’s version is not only more creatively staged, but features a knockout Kimberly Gilbert in what could be one of the most commanding performances to hit a DMV-area stage this decade.
Book
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins loves his gritty ensemble dramas. And heck, so do we. Keep them coming.
In Appropriate — whether that’s the adjective or the verb is up for debate — Jenkins explores a can of worms infecting an already-eroding family. Circa 2011, the Lafayette patriarch has died, leaving the family plantation home in Arkansas in the hands of his disgruntled children Toni, Bo, and Franz. Toni had a crumudgeous, yet loving, relationship with the father; Bo, a little less so, and Franz the least, and lived with him the longest. As of the opening of the play, Franz had not been heard from in a decade.
So color Toni surprised when he shows up at the house unexpectedly with a fiancee named River, one he picked up in the granola-laden landscape of Portland. As Bo and his wife Rachel arrive the next day with their kids, an unexpected family reunion is in full swing that goes about as smoothly as one would expect. When, in the unpacking process, a specific artifact is unearthed, it shatters the family’s understanding of their father and who he was. This leads to significant and explosive interactions that reveal even darker secrets than one expects. Any sort of trigger warning would effectively spoil the entire thing, so believe me when I say it gets insane, especially in the final third of this three-hour extravaganza. The best way I can describe things is that from my side of the alley staging (more on that below), I saw a triplet of women who had some of the most animated audience reactions I’ve ever seen, and it honestly felt like they could have oversold it even more. But while it’s full of characterized twists and shock value, the overarching book itself doesn’t really hold any narrative surprises.
From an audience perspective, there’s a lot of heavy foreshadowing I felt was detrimental. The “reveal” is less impressive in what it actually was than how it was executed. This can mean the characters’ motivations feel hollow, as if everyone knows the truth but is too self-absorbed to realize it. There’s a commentary on rejecting a change in who you thought you knew, but nobody actually feels like they believe the other side of the story enough for their own doubts to have any weight. But this isn’t to say there’s no character intrigue at all! In fact, the nuggets of information from characters like Cassidy, Bo and Rachel’s 13 year-old daughter, indicate an undercurrent of explotation that survives through the familty’s current generation. When analyzing the piece using Jenkin’s propensity to use these character-driven dramas as mosaics of critique, the image becomes more emphatic. (SPOILER ALERT →) But yet when the show talks all about lynching and dark histories, all the while sort of glossing over the active grooming situation happening in their own house by a convicted statutory rapist, it’s hard to feel validated by their development as people. 7/10
Acting
The Lafayette family erupts with character, anchored by Kimberly Gilbert at perhaps the best, most distorted you’ve ever seen her. Toni is a layered, worn-out character that requires a severe level of command to pull off, and Gilbert not only does so — she’s damn near frightening at it. Her grisly twang weaponizes Toni’s dialog, and her scattered presence adds a flavor of uncertainty to the family dynamic that unsettles even further a group that isn’t very “settled” in the first place. She has good support to stand on, too: check out unmissable turns by Brigid Wallace Harper as River, a more serious role that I hope leads to further dramatic ones in the future for her, and Dina Thomas’ rigidly skeptical Rachel, among this sublime cast. 10/10
Production
Artistic Director Jason Loewith has directed this piece with an extreme level of finesse and detail. Let’s begin with the set, designed by Nadir Bey. It’s in an alley configuration (a vastly under-utilized arrangement in theatre, I argue) that utilizes the other half of the audience as a mirror. With the amount of insane mic drops and plot twists in this piece, being able to witness your fellow audience’s jaws collectively hit the floor is a connective theatrical experience that reinforces the play’s messaging, Max Doolittle’s lighting creates wonderful sense of environment alongside a delightfully arranged aural texture by sound designer Matthew M Nielson. 10/10
Viz
“Welcome to rural Arkansas,” smartly says Olney’s Mulitz-Gudelsky Theater Lab, pattering their entryway with ivy, grasses, and ferns. But if that weren’t enough, the orchestral buzzing of cicadas harkens the audience into the all-too-familiar sensations of thickly humid summers that we share with the southern state.The show engulfs you in its dixie gothic universe from the minute your ticket gets scanned, and the lighting drives home its dark undertones to an insane degree. 10/10
Verdict
Appropriate is a masterclass in gritty, unrestrained performance that uses clever staging to deliver a serpentine story of family reckoning. 37/40
