Review: APPROPRIATE Turns The Tables On The Classic American Family Drama To Unearth Dark Secrets That Earlier Writers Generally Did Not Address.

Seven years after its world premiere in Chicago, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' Obie Award winning APPROPRIATE is presented as part of Sydney Theatre Company's 2021 season. Director Wesley Enoch brings this subversive twist on the classic American family drama to life to challenge Australian audiences to consider the secrets in their family trees and the responsibilities the current generation have for the faults of their forebears.

APPROPRIATE, which can be both the adjective (apprŏ'prĭ|ate) or the verb (apprŏ'prĭ|āt), draws on the classic American Family dramas, like Tracy Letts' AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY and Tennessee Williams' CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, to use the recognizable structures while adding the new question of where these types of dysfunctional white families sit in relation to the people of color that, while an important part of American history, have not always been acknowledged in theatrical works. While the earlier stories about white families were written by white men, APPROPRIATE is written by the African American Branden Jacobs-Jenkins who presents an intriguingly subversive spin on the well know genre as he not only draws on the existing style but also forces the characters, and therefore the audience, to consider whether the behaviours and ideas that are unearthed are right and proper in the modern context and what this means to the family identity.

APPROPRIATE centres on the Lafayette (a name also linked to the French aristocrat and military officer who fought in the American Revolutionary War and advocated for the end of slavery in the 1789 Declaration of The Rights Of Man And Of The Citizen co-authored with Thomas Jefferson) family's Arkansas plantation, or what remains for the 5th generation to dispose of following patriarch Ray "Daddy" Lafayette's passing 6 months prior. Alerted to the impending liquidation of the estate, youngest son Frank, who has recently reinvented himself as Franz (Johnny Carr) breaks into the mansion with new fiancé, spiritual and sensitive River (Brenna Harding) only to be confronted by older teen nephew Rhys (James Fraser) and Toni (Mandy McElhinney), Franz eldest sibling and Rhys' mother. The following morning Franz's older brother Bo's (Sam Worthington) perfect American family of wife Rachael (Lucy Bell) and two children, 13-year-old, nearly and adult, Cassidy (Ella Jacob) and 8-year-old Ainsley (role shared by Joel Bishop and Robbi Morgan) roll in the front door and the chaos and fighting fires up. Flinging insults, accusations, and insinuations, the family not only expose old hurts, resentments, and financially motivated jealousies but also the years' worth of their father's horded items they hope to sell off to clear his debt. This cleanout leads to the discovery of unsavoury artifacts that challenge the siblings to reconsider who their father, a Harvard trained lawyer, was as they struggle to believe they could be his and he could have been a racist bigot though they don't seem as concerned that the fortunes of their ancestors buried in marked graves at the side of the house were founded on the slaves buried in unmarked graves in the trees beyond the lake.

Designer Elizabeth Gadsby has utilized the full space of the Roslyn Packer Theatre stage to recreate the inside of a once grand plantation home, complete with sweeping staircase and Doric columns, that has been midway through renovations for many years following changes in financial circumstances that circumvented the modifications for a Bed and Breakfast business. Initially piles of old newspapers, magazines and other rubbish cover every available surface, hiding the value of the fine wood tables, silverware, china and objet d'art that eventually emerges for the estate sale. Lighting designer Trent Suidgeest shifts the work through day and night with sunlight pouring in the large windows, wall lights and even an assortment of candles.

Gadsby's use of costuming reinforces the characters' identity, with the money focused New Yorkers Bo and Rachael presented in what they perceive as summer travelling clothes of beige suit and crisp conservative skirt and silk patterned pussy bow blouse respectively, while more down to earth Toni and Franz are casual in jeans and hippy River sports cheesecloth and amulets.

Composer and Sound Designer Steve Francis has created an imposing soundscape of the summer cicadas, ensuring that the direction of "a billion cicadas begin trilling" to the point of having the audience question how long they will be plunged in darkness drowned by the cacophony is audibly felt as incredulous comments can be heard before relief is finally felt. This theme is repeated to cover scene changes, helping to reinforce the season and the fact that the bulk of the story only spans a few days.

APPROPRIATE is filled with passionate expressions of the various family members views on the situation and their relationship with one another leading to some powerful monologues particularly from Mandy McElhinney and Brenna Harding who express women that can see the family from significantly different perspectives. Also of note is Ella Jacob's portrayal of young teenager Cassidy who conveys the youth's maturity and wisdom in contrast to the absurd behaviours of the adults that keep trying to shield and silence her.

As the characters battle with the idea that Daddy may not be as good as their memories made out, Enoch ensures that the different degrees of loyalty to the memory are clear, from Toni who clings to the idea that the only person that knew her entire life story had to be good, to Bo who is swayed into doubt by Rachael's revelations that she felt Daddy dislike of her went beyond just disliking her marriage to Bo. Enoch has the characters all express an underlying selfishness at the start leading to the impression that each member of the family is desperate for their voice to be heard although they don't entirely listen to what the others have to say until they are all thrown into the collective dilemma of determining who Daddy was and what they intend to do about it. While the adult members of the family are all greatly flawed people, from greed, deviancy, addiction, obsession and long held resentment they generally remain unlikable aside from Toni who's position as a surrogate mother to her brothers and the consequences she bore for her son's decisions does eventually garner a degree of sympathy as does Cassidy's position in the middle of her parents' prejudice that will force her to lose contact with her relatives.

While some of APPROPRIATE feels a little too laboured and drawn out, it is good to see the genre of American Family drama, particularly that set in the deep south address the dark truth that underpins the region's history. The presentation of the work in 2021 does raise the question as to whether the work, first performed in 2013, will become a piece of its time or if it can evolve to take into account progress in views on the treatment of people of colour in a world that had an increase in hate speech along with better coverage on the need to provide a safe and fair society for people of colour, particularly the African American communities. It feels as if it were written following the Black Lives Matters movement there would have a more pronounced response to the materials discovered, particularly from the younger generation of the family who were less likely to write off some of Daddy's behaviours as just carryovers from the era in which he grew up.

https://www.sydneytheatre.com.au/whats-on/productions/2021/appropriate

Photos: Prudence Upton.