“Appropriate,” currently at the Mark Taper Forum, was written by 31-year-old playwright Branden Jacob-Jenkins and garnered him an Obie Award for best new play. He also received an Obie for an earlier work, “Octoroon.” The playwright is black, the cast of “Appropriate” is white, but the specter of slavery is felt throughout this dark comedy.
“Appropriate,” currently at the Mark Taper Forum, was written by 31-year-old playwright Branden Jacob-Jenkins and garnered him an Obie Award for best new play. He also received an Obie for an earlier work, “Octoroon.” The playwright is black, the cast of “Appropriate” is white, but the specter of slavery is felt throughout this dark comedy.
According to Obie Award-winning director Eric Ting, “Part of what I love about ‘Appropriate’ is its subversiveness. The title is charged and filled with layers of meaning. I keep coming back to the fact that it is, finally, a play about family and how well we know each other, and whether or not we can fully know each other. It’s about legacy. It’s about the inability to literally share a life from one generation to the next.”
It begins in the dark as “Franz”/Frank Lafayette (Robert Beitzel) enters the crumbling plantation belonging to his late father through a window. It has been 10 years since he has had any connection to or with his family, but now he has come back for a special reason. He is joined by his somewhat spacey, New Age young fiancé River Rayner (Zarah Mahler).
His unannounced appearance does not sit well with his shrewish older sister Toni (Melora Hardin). She wants him gone, but he is determined to stay and talk with her and his older brother “Bo” (David Bishins) who has come to the plantation to put together an estate sale planned by Toni. Bo is there with his teen-aged daughter Cassie (Grace Kaufman), her little brother (Alexander James Rodriguez/alternating with Liam Blair Askew in the role) and his wife Rachel (Missy Yager) who is trying to help Toni organize the Estate sale. It is soon obvious that the two rather pushy, volatile women do not get along.
Add to the mix Toni’s son Rhys (Will Tanfo) who, like Toni’s youngest brother Frank/AKA Franz, has problems with drinking and drugs.
Like the Pulitzer-Prize winning “August Osage County” the family is an emotional mess with plenty of issues. And while both works are dark in many ways, they also make us laugh at the follies of family lives that inter-mingle and often strangle one another.
For the Lafayette family there is the dark legacy of slavery, long buried like the bones of the earlier plantation owners and their black slaves who lie in unmarked graves on the crumbling property. In fact the cemeteries also are a detriment to a sale of the dilapidated plantation.
The stark reality and sadness of earlier days comes to light when, while preparing the items for the estate sale, the family comes across photographs of lynchings and other atrocities that took place in the past.
While we can laugh at the confrontations between the older siblings, we feel the pain that comes from loved one who now find it hard to love, or even like one another.
The play, told in three acts, not the usual two-act format of most modern plays, could use a little pruning. A little less would be more appropriate. And unlike “August Osage Country,” some of the family confrontations in “Appropriate” seem somewhat theatrical rather than gut-wrenching.
“Appropriate,” at the Mark Taper Forum, 135 North Grand, Downtown, L.A., through Nov. 1. For tickets call 213-628-2772.
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On DVD Oct. 13—”San Andreas,” starring Dwayne Johnson (The Rock).
There is a joke that goes something like this: After a big earthquake, San Andreas said,“It’s not my fault.” However a real powerful earthquake on that fault line would be no laughing matter, so be prepared to shake in front of your TV now that “San Andreas” is available for home viewing.
The film, shot on location in Australia, Los Angeles and San Francisco, chronicles what might occur following a magnitude 9 plus earthquake on the infamous San Andreas fault line.
When this happens on screen, a search and rescue helicopter pilot (Dwayne Johnson) and his estranged wife (Carla Gugino, TV’s “Entourage”) make their way from Los Angeles to San Francisco to save their only daughter. But their treacherous journey north is only the beginning of an earth shaking (literally) adventure and when they think the worst may be over, it’s just getting started.
The movie, rated PG-13 for intense disaster action and mayhem throughout and brief strong language, also co-stars Oscar nominee Paul Giamatti.
Special features contain the following: commentary by director Brad Peyton, “San Andreas: The Real Fault Line,” Dwayne Johnson to the Rescue, Scoring the Quake, Deleted Scenes with Commentary by Director Brad Peyton and a gag Reel and Stunt Reel.
