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Theater review: Purpose at La Jolla Playhouse
The Tony and the Pulitzer aren’t hard to fathom: there is real bravery in dismantling the myth of civil rights icon Solomon “Sonny” Jasper: a man whose image adorns classroom walls; a man who marched at Selma with, ahem, Dr. King; a man who also happens to be a Christian reverend with a reputation for disregarding the commandment about committing adultery. And there is real skill in doing the demo work from the outside in, starting with his two sons — a politician who just got out of the joint for embezzlement, and an might’ve-been pastor who dropped out of divinity school to take up nature photography.
That would be Nazareth — and upon further consideration, he may be the real key to the lauds and plaudits. It may be that the Blackness is just a backdrop for the real struggle: mental illness. Because despite the titanic, looming persona of his father, this is Nazareth’s story: he is our neurodivergent narrator, and his struggle is not a sidebar; it is central. So central that he opens and closes the play with long monologues that deal with his life before and after the dramatic events that take up most of the action: a rough night and rougher morning at the Jasper home on a snowy evening in post-pandemic Chicago. So central that he frequently interrupts those dramatic events to offer commentary. It may be something as banal as “This is where things got bad,” but it serves to put distance between the viewer and the action — the kind of distance a person with a certain sort of mental condition might feel. Oh, did you lose emotional engagement? Welcome to my world.
The experience can be disorienting. There were times when the audience laughed at scenes of deep suffering — laughed, I suspect, not out of heartless malice, but out of confusion. The way a child might laugh at something incomprehensible. Like grown men raging and weeping over a bucket of honey. It can also be a bit exhausting: there is the story, and there is Nazareth’s experience of the story, and the result is very nearly two plays in one. Happily, the cast is so strong that they keep grabbing your attention, picking it up, dusting it off, and setting it back in its place.
Back to that bucket of honey: Solomon has taken to keeping bees in his old age. He admires them for their sense of…well, the play is called Purpose. (Fun fact: back in the Middle Ages, before people had figured out that hives were built around a queen and not a king, bees were held up as a model of the kingdom of heaven. Everyone knows what to do, and has the will to do it, and the result is a sweet miracle.) And here’s where the play really gets difficult: in its treatment of mental illness and morality. There is morality here, and its opposite: mythmaking means doing violence to the truth, and heaven help those who want to tell it. But whatever the sins of the father (and mother), there’s a reason Solomon doesn’t want to accept that his children’s behavior might have more to do with the condition of their minds than the content of their character. It’s the kind of complication that denies a story the satisfaction of a conclusion. Purpose knows that.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Theater review: Purpose at La Jolla Playhouse
Theater review: Purpose at La Jolla Playhouse
The Tony and the Pulitzer aren’t hard to fathom: there is real bravery in dismantling the myth of civil rights icon Solomon “Sonny” Jasper: a man whose image adorns classroom walls; a man who marched at Selma with, ahem, Dr. King; a man who also happens to be a Christian reverend with a reputation for disregarding the commandment about committing adultery. And there is real skill in doing the demo work from the outside in, starting with his two sons — a politician who just got out of the joint for embezzlement, and an might’ve-been pastor who dropped out of divinity school to take up nature photography.
That would be Nazareth — and upon further consideration, he may be the real key to the lauds and plaudits. It may be that the Blackness is just a backdrop for the real struggle: mental illness. Because despite the titanic, looming persona of his father, this is Nazareth’s story: he is our neurodivergent narrator, and his struggle is not a sidebar; it is central. So central that he opens and closes the play with long monologues that deal with his life before and after the dramatic events that take up most of the action: a rough night and rougher morning at the Jasper home on a snowy evening in post-pandemic Chicago. So central that he frequently interrupts those dramatic events to offer commentary. It may be something as banal as “This is where things got bad,” but it serves to put distance between the viewer and the action — the kind of distance a person with a certain sort of mental condition might feel. Oh, did you lose emotional engagement? Welcome to my world.
The experience can be disorienting. There were times when the audience laughed at scenes of deep suffering — laughed, I suspect, not out of heartless malice, but out of confusion. The way a child might laugh at something incomprehensible. Like grown men raging and weeping over a bucket of honey. It can also be a bit exhausting: there is the story, and there is Nazareth’s experience of the story, and the result is very nearly two plays in one. Happily, the cast is so strong that they keep grabbing your attention, picking it up, dusting it off, and setting it back in its place.
Back to that bucket of honey: Solomon has taken to keeping bees in his old age. He admires them for their sense of…well, the play is called Purpose. (Fun fact: back in the Middle Ages, before people had figured out that hives were built around a queen and not a king, bees were held up as a model of the kingdom of heaven. Everyone knows what to do, and has the will to do it, and the result is a sweet miracle.) And here’s where the play really gets difficult: in its treatment of mental illness and morality. There is morality here, and its opposite: mythmaking means doing violence to the truth, and heaven help those who want to tell it. But whatever the sins of the father (and mother), there’s a reason Solomon doesn’t want to accept that his children’s behavior might have more to do with the condition of their minds than the content of their character. It’s the kind of complication that denies a story the satisfaction of a conclusion. Purpose knows that.
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