THIS IS GREAT THEATER. TRUST ME.
Reviewers across the country have honored the 2024 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Primary Trust with many positive adjectives, like “touching” and “deeply affecting.” But one adjective comes closer to the mark in describing the Eboni Booth drama: mesmerizing. The show is receiving its West Coast premiere at the La Jolla Playhouse in a production that had the capacity audience at my performance involved, and I mean TOTALLY.
The play seems ordinary enough, employing just four actors, three playing multiple roles to fill its 95 minutes of uninterrupted playing time. The setting is confined to a commonplace fictional small town near Rochester, New York. There is no sex, violence, or broad comedy. However, the subtlety and delicacy of Booth’s writing is extraordinary and absorbing.
Primary Trust centers on a 38-year-old unmarried black man known only as Kenneth. For 20 years, Kenneth has worked in a bookstore in his nearly all-white town. He leads a completely isolated life, though there is no suggestion of racial conflict. Kenneth spends his waking hours either at the bookstore or sipping mai tai drinks in a local bar with his longtime friend Bert, a character who lives only in Kenneth’s head (it is not violating any crucial secret to reveal Bert’s imaginary status, which Kenneth explains in detail to the audience very early in the play).
Kenneth’s self-imposed isolation has its origins in a terrible domestic incident involving his mother that occurred when he was 10 years old. Kenneth was then placed in a series of foster homes until he got his job at the bookstore in his late teens. By this time Kenneth was carrying a baggage of psychological scars that put a full stop to his emotional development. His lifestyle came to a sudden end when he learned that the bookstore is being closed in a few weeks, forcing him to deal with his first lifestyle change in 20 years, and unsure how to cope. Viewers may take the play’s concluding moments as a suggesting a reason for cautious optimism. I wasn’t so sure.
The actor who plays Kenneth has to carry the show and the La Jolla Playhouse has cast a winner in Caleb Eberhardt, who brings major New York City and regional acting credits to the role. Eberhardt is on stage the entire play, carving out a performance filled with eloquent pauses and silences that complement the character’s outwardly low-key dialogue. Kenneth’s deceptively natural demeanor masks his inner turmoil, so when he is driven once to a vocal outburst, the contrast with his quiet manner of speaking jolts the audience like a sudden thunderclap. This is nuanced acting like we rarely see.
The three supporting performers provide superior support in a broad variety of roles (and costume changes). James Udom plays Bert, invisible to everyone but Kenneth and the audience, with a natural quality that excludes any gimmicky theatrical devices. Rebecca S’Manga Frank plays an assortment of ethnic females who serve both serious and comic purposes admirably. And James Urbaniak shows exceptional versatility in roles that nicely garnish his one-on-one scenes with Kenneth. At the edge of the stage, composer Luke Wygodny presides over an electric keyboard and various stringed instruments and also periodically strikes a desk bell that announces a change of scene or a shift in time.
The major set designers certainly do their part. Marsha Ginsburg‘s set consists of half-sized models of structures that cleverly portray key buildings in the New England town. Sophia Choi‘s colorful and stylish costume designs include mini wardrobes of clothes suitable for bank executives, restaurant waitresses, and other denizens of the town. Masha Tsimring designed the lighting, including neon flourishes, and Mikaal Sulaiman designed the sound plan.
Director Knud Adams deserves highest commendation for his skill at shaping the production with a naturalism that melds perfectly with the turbulence boiling within Kenneth’s outwardly placid manner. Some viewers may complain that the play moves too slowly for the modest amount of action on view. But Booth’s depth and delicacy worked every minute for me. Her writing, Adams’s directing, and, above all, Eberhardt’s Kenneth have joined to make this one memorable artistic experience.
photos by Rich Soublet II
Primary Trust
La Jolla Playhouse
Mandell Weiss Forum, 2910 La Jolla Village Drive, La Jolla
Tues-Fri at 7:30; Sat at 2 & 8; Sun at 1 & 7
ends on October 20, 2024
for tickets ($39-$94), call 858.550.1010 or visit La Jolla Playhouse