Review: PRIMARY TRUST at Portland Center Stage

When I saw Portland Center Stage lineup for this season, the show I was most excited about was Eboni Booth’s PRIMARY TRUST. I’d heard nothing but good things about this play, which won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The plot is deceptively simple, but underneath flows a current of kindness, human connection, and the possibility of transformation – all themes that feel urgently necessary.

PRIMARY TRUST is a character-driven play about a thirty-something man named Kenneth, who lives in Cranberry, NY, a fictional suburb of Rochester with the motto, “Welcome, friend. You’re right on time!” He works at the Yellowed Pages used bookstore, and every day he goes to Wally’s, an old-fashioned tiki bar, to sip 2-for-1 mai tais with his Best Friend, Bert. When the bookstore closes, Kenneth must venture beyond his neatly ordered life to find a new job and, more terrifyingly, talk to new people.

One of the things that makes PRIMARY TRUST remarkable is its almost radical gentleness.  I don’t remember there being a single mean, or even sideways, remark. A bank customer gets mildly impatient – that’s the extent of the interpersonal conflict. The people of Cranberry view each other through a lens of extraordinary generosity, extending the grace that we would all hope to receive as we fumble awkwardly through life. It’s beautiful. That’s not to say that everything is all flowers and candy – Kenneth carries genuine trauma and battles persistent anxiety. But the play shows the transformative power of a compassionate community.

The success of a show like this depends on the audience falling in love with Kenneth, and Larry Owens makes this effortless. His performance radiates enthusiasm and warmth that will win you over from the opening monologue. The supporting cast matches his open-heartedness – Austin Michael Young (Bert), with Ted Rooney and Shareen Jacobs, who both create a vivid gallery of Cranberry’s citizens across multiple roles.

At a time when it's too easy to succumb to negativity and nihilism, PRIMARY TRUST offers kindness and hope. It’s exactly the play we need right now.

PRIMARY TRUST runs through October 26. Details and tickets here.