By Darby Turnbull
As one of Western theatre’s most prolific preeminent young playwrights (he’s just turned 40) Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins has more than earned his place on the cultural mantle for his genre expansive, bold epic takes on the state of the United States; Appropriate, a southern gothic family drama and An Octoroon, a modern take on the Jacobean tragedy explored the legacy of slavery, Gloria a corporate satire on the commodification of violence and personal tragedy, Purpose currently playing on Broadway, another family epic on the conservative leanings of elder civil rights leaders and the heavy burdens of Black excellence in pursuit of liberation. First staged in 2022, The Comeuppance is his ‘Covid’ play.
There’s no undue anticipation when it comes to a local staging of a Jacobs-Jenkins play, especially Red Stitch, one of our most reliably excellent producers of Western Theatre, but for me there was something missing. Maybe my expectations were too lofty, but this one left me cold. Naturally the play is fine, the cast excellent, the production capable; but maybe it’s the sense of theatrical déjà vu of the regular theatre goer but there was so much in the writing and presentation that I felt I’d seen done before and done better, frequently at this very theatre.
Five friends meet for a pre-game drink before their 20th high school reunion. Former ‘gifted’ kids, they took pride in their outsider status, naming themselves MERG (Multi-Ethnic Reject Group). Two decades on they’re at various levels of estrangement, one of their number hasn’t even shown up, and all reckoning with the tolls of age, the trauma of war and the COVID pandemic, political upheaval and their own thwarted hopes and dreams.
Ursula (AYA) has lost sight in one eye due to rapidly progressive diabetes, Caitlin (Julia Grace) the former high achiever now married to a right-wing insurrectionist and raising two stepchildren she doesn’t like, Kristina (Tess Masters) and overworked doctor and mother of five and Emilio (Khisraw Jones-Shukoor), a conceptual artist recently returned from Berlin. Gate crashing is Caitlin’s ex-boyfriend Paco (Kevin Hofbauer), returned from five consecutive tours of Afghanistan with severe PTSD and has epileptic seizures.
Director Gary Abrahams has set the tone somewhat heightened; the early parts of the play can sometimes feel like a sit-com with broadly expositional dialogue and corny ‘in’ jokes and the performances are modulated to match. You feel the characters performing for each other, desperately trying to regain long lost connections by some flawed regressing to high school dynamics. Jacob-Jenkins writes in the play that ‘memory is a myth’ and each member of the cast led by Abrahams shows keen insight into the absurd recreation of self-mythology.
Khisraw Jones-Shukoor as Emilio acts as the audience’s representative in some ways and it’s not especially flattering. Emilio is the ‘Chandler’ of the group; someone whose sense of intellectual and moral superiority leads to some noxious interpersonal dynamics. So self-absorbed with his role as ‘nice guy’ some of the most profound acts of emotional violence come from him. Jones-Shukoor is relentless in these moments fully committing to the ugliness of someone who’s supposed position on the ‘right’ side can result in the erosion of any sense of empathy to other people. AYA’s Ursula by contrast is a keen watcher and gentle de escalator and (though it’s an overused trope to have the blind character have the most insight-get it?) has the most capacity to see people where they’re out. AYA, having a very good year between this and POTUS, strikes a lovely balance between homey self-deprecation and fatigued dignity.
Tess Masters’ Kristina turns her several drunken speeches into devastating confessional arias. Masters has a way with language that makes it feel like the words pour out of her on their own accord without stopping for breath.
Julia Grace’s Caitlin looks like she’s been rapidly drained by life, we discover just how much her body has been through on a reproductive level and the emotional toll it’s taken on this bright, compassionate woman.
Kevin Hofbauer’s Paco is like a grenade, Paco is the kind of man the US likes to elevate, chew up and spit out. Hofbauer exquisitely plays the conflict of his manic machismo with the deep impacts of the trauma of five tours of duty and his lack of direction in civilian life. Jacobs-Jenkins and the company weave a very fine thread here that takes direct aim at the moral absolutism that has emerged in response to the barrage of cultural crises. Paco, it is implied repeatedly coerced Caitlin into sex when they dated as teenagers, Emilio is emphatic he’s a predator, Caitlin is ambivalent and was a lifeline for Paco overseas, but Emilio repeatedly overrides Caitlin to call him out. The majority ‘leftist’ audience is naturally inclined to scorn the potential date rapist and soldier in an unpopular war, his ‘comeuppance’ being physical and mental trauma but Jacobs-Jenkins in one of the few understated moments in the text asks us to look at these dynamics in a new light and above all connect with each other rather than an idea.
Despite some sporadic engagement with the dynamics of the ideas and themes in the text I struggled to find that essential ‘hook’ that elevated the play beyond a tepid ‘reunion’ play.
That something else is the inclusion of Death as the vital sixth character, who fluidly moves between each character to provide periodic addresses to the audience. Death as a front-line, essential worker has naturally developed their own ways of coping with their job. They’re an insatiable gossip, a grim philosopher, a morbid wit and ultimately a bit of a scold. Deaths’ interludes provide bemused yet compassionate assessments of each character with each actor gleefully dropping character to do their own version of psychopomp open mic, Joe Paradise Lui’s sound design has great fun in distorting the voices through the shared microphone. Death makes it clear that they are involved in the play in a ‘professional capacity’. It’s a necessary but frustrating layer of tension that the play sorely needs but I’m conflicted about whether as written, it’s entirely earned. To the chagrin and confusion of awards bodies Jacobs-Jenkins play Appropriate has been rewritten in between major productions and if long term interest persists, I’d be intrigued about how he might revisit this one on a thematic and character level with the benefit of time. Towards the end Death provides an impassioned plea to the audience to learn from the pandemic, allegedly it brought us together and inspired many to be the best versions of themselves and reconnect with essential things like ‘showing up for each other’ and they implore us to ‘be better’. That’s where the play lost me. One of my major pet peeves in theatre is the feeling that I’m being lectured by the playwright. In the last few years, I can think of a few examples where a plays creator has felt the need to condescendingly overplay their hand and wag their dramatic finger at the audience to remind us of our own culpability and responsibility, Sam Holcroft’s A Mirror comes to mind. Throughout I kept grasping for a sense of irony in the device, perhaps despite their omnipotence Death is themselves burnt out and lashing out, to me that’s more dramatically engaging than the somewhat irritated feeling I got that the playwright didn’t trust his audience to ‘get it’. Late in the play there’s a lovely rueful speech from an unseen character ‘Columbine, 9/11, the wars, Trump, Covid, whatever’s going on in with the supreme court, it just feels too much and then I think about what our grandparents went through and their grandparents and maybe this is just how life is supposed to be?’. Could not be more succinct. But perhaps our comeuppance is we’ve surrendered our right to subtly?
Though in a world that persistently assaults our moral senses it’s helpful to have theatre that gives us the opportunity to regroup and reassess our place within global turmoil. As one of the major writers of today I’m hopeful we can trust Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins as a valued chronicler.
Image: Cameron Grant
