APPROPRIATE Reviews

Inappropriate reviews may be more fun, but these may have to do. ;)

----------

Two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and Obie Award winner Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (An Octoroon) and Drama Desk Award winner Lila Neugebauer (The Waverly Gallery, 2ST’s Mary Page Marlowe) invite you to one helluva reunion in the darkly comic American family drama, APPROPRIATE.

It’s summer, the cicadas are singing, and the Lafayette family has returned to their late patriarch’s Arkansas home to deal with the remains of his estate. Toni (Paulson), the eldest daughter, hopes they’ll spend the weekend remembering and reconnecting over their beloved father. Bo, her brother, wants to recoup some of the funds he spent caring for Dad at the end of his life. But things take a turn when their estranged brother, Franz, appears late one night, and mysterious objects are discovered among the clutter. Suddenly, long-hidden secrets and buried resentments can’t be contained, and the family is forced to face the ghosts of their past.

Opening Night is Monday, December 18.

NYT Critics Pick from Green

Making a blistering Broadway debut, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s 2014 play about the legacies of hatred feels like a new work entirely.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/18/theater/appropriate-broadway-review.html

"I have to admit that when I first saw it, at the Signature Theater in 2014, neither understanding nor enjoyment were forthcoming. Rereading my scathing review in light of what is obviously a rave today, I am forced to grapple with my own past, and the play’s. It would be easy to say that the difference between then and now is the heavy rewriting Jacobs-Jenkins has done in the interim. And certainly, comparing the two scripts, I see the clearer dramatic architecture and sharper point-of-view that a playwright in his prime, at 38, can impose. (I thought Jacobs-Jenkins’s most recent play, “The Comeuppance,” was one of the best of 2023.)

It would also be easy to attribute the improvement to Neugebauer’s direction, which is so smart and swift for most of the play’s substantial length that you feel gripped by storytelling without being strangled by argument. Her staging, on a towering double-decker set by the design collective dots, is also nearly ideal, accentuating (with the help of Jane Cox’s painterly lighting) the conflicts and alliances among the characters. And the daredevil cast, instead of reveling in falling apart, focuses for as long as possible on keeping it together. We thus experience, in the force of that repression, just how awful human awfulness must be if human will cannot ultimately corral it.

Though all those improvements are real, they do not fully explain why I’ve flipped for this revival. Perhaps this does: Playwrights who show us things we are reluctant to see may have to teach us, over time, how to see it. And we must be willing to have our eyes opened. I guess I’ve changed at least that much in 10 years of reviewing, and Jacobs-Jenkins is part of the reason."

Updated On: 12/18/23 at 10:01 PM

NY Stage Review:

Appropriate: Check Your Expectations at the Door for This Brilliantly Subversive Family Drama

By Frank Scheck

★★★★★ Branden Jacobs-Jenkins's acclaimed play makes its Broadway debut in a revelatory staging.

https://nystagereview.com/2023/12/18/appropriate-check-your-expectations-at-the-door-for-this-brilliantly-subversive-family-drama/



Appropriate: Southern Discomfort and Sibling Rivalry at Its Juiciest

By Melissa Rose Bernardo

★★★★☆ Lila Neugebauer directs an epic, emotionally draining Broadway debut drama by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

https://nystagereview.com/2023/12/18/appropriate-southern-discomfort-and-sibling-rivalry-at-its-juiciest/

Variety:

‘Appropriate’ Review: Sarah Paulson and Corey Stoll Are Vicious and Dynamic in a Haunting Broadway Family Drama

https://variety.com/2023/legit/reviews/appropriate-review-broadway-sarah-paulson-corey-stoll-1235841181/

Holden in Vulture is positive

https://www.vulture.com/2023/12/theater-review-branden-jacobs-jenkinss-appropriate.html

Chicago Tribune:

Review: ‘Appropriate’ opens on Broadway, with Sarah Paulson leading the most intense family since ‘Osage County’

https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/theater/reviews/ct-ent-appropriate-broadway-review-20231219-ccqq4wgb4vg35ovtaalmimvfuy-story.html

DTLI Consensus: The most intense, gripping family drama Broadway has seen in years.

10 positive (including the NYT).

https://didtheylikeit.com/shows/appropriate/

I keep reading in some of these reviews that the play has been somewhat changed from its original run to its Broadway run - can anyone who has seen a production of the show regionally tell me if/how much the show has changed for Broadway? I saw a production at Coal Mine Theatre in Toronto earlier this year; I liked the show, but I don't feel the need to see it again on Broadway in the near future. But if the show has been substantially changed from what I saw at Coal Mine, I might change my mind!

I have seen no other productions of Appropriate, but this one handily deserves every one of the raves it has received. Don't miss it.

Observer:

Review: ‘Appropriate’ Is a Family Album of White Supremacy

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s slow-burning satire of white privilege arrives on Broadway in an impeccable production with a dream cast led by Sarah Paulson.

https://observer.com/2023/12/review-appropriate-is-a-family-album-of-white-supremacy/

I guess I should not have thrown away the flyer that appeared in my mailbox 2 months ago! I wonder what prices were then? Does anyone remember?

Where are the 134 dollar tickets located? Seems like they should move this to a bigger theatre….

yyys said: "I noticed they just increased the mezzanine seats from $129 to $159 and the ones previously $159 are now $189."

Grrrr.

Got a $43 TodayTix rush for tonight with no difficulty. I think these days leading up to Christmas might offer a better chance of getting through for anyone looking to get a discount ticket.

Updated On: 12/20/23 at 09:08 AM