In ‘Purpose,’ family dysfunction is on the dinner menu

By Rich Fahey

BOSTON – There are families. And then there are families.

One of award-winning playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s specialties is the latter.

The theater seats at the Calderwood Pavilion don’t come equipped with seat belts. Still, you should be forewarned and forearmed when the narrator of “Purpose,” Nazareth “Naz” Jasper (Omari K. Chancellor), tells us as dinner begins to “buckle up.”

Let the battles begin in The Huntington’s production of this dark comedy. Long-simmering resentments and fractured relationships are both on the menu.

Jacobs-Jenkins already had a proven track record in the area before “Purpose.” Gloucester Stage’s 2022 production of “Gloria,” Speakeasy Stage’s 2018 production of “Appropriate,” Arts Emerson and Company One’s “An Octoroon” in 2016 and Company One’s 2011 “Neighbors” were all greeted warmly, found their audiences and marked the playwright as a major talent.

So it would come as no surprise when “Appropriate” copped the 2014 Obie Award for Best New Play and the 2014 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play, or when “Purpose” won the 2025 Tony for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

As always, Jacobs-Jenkins’s characters in this dark comedy are sharply drawn and detailed. The Solomon family is proud and powerful, led by Solomon Jasper (Ezra Knight), a pastor and civil rights icon whose lighted, framed portrait of Dr. Martin Luther King is front and center at the celebration of Solomon’s birthday.

 He has spent much of his life away from family, speaking and advocating for civil rights, and as his celebrity fades there also have been  rumors of dalliances outside his marriage to Claudine (a wonderful Phyllis Yvonne Stickney).

He has also formed only tenuous bonds with his sons. Naz decided to reject the family business and drop out of divinity school.  Older brother Solomon “Junior” Jasper (Ugo Chukwu) is a politician who as the play opens has just emerged from prison after a two-year sentence for white-collar crimes.  His mental health may be fragile, but his father blames him for tarnishing the family name and questions whether his cries for help are simply a way to get attention.  

Junior and wife Morgan (MarHardoo Effeh) have twin sons, one neurodivergent, and the fact she is about to begin her own year-long prison sentence has ratcheted up tensions between the couple to a point where they are barely speaking. She only reluctantly emerges from her bedroom to join the dinner.

Claudine is trained in the law, yet she is also the embodiment of matriarchal warmth and the power behind the throne. For years, she has kept the home fires burning while her husband was away, and she remains skilled in the use of political power. Deeply religious and fiercely protective of her sons, she is the family’s linchpin.

Naz, our narrator who frequently breaks down the fourth wall to comment or give background, is a sensitive, shy man not always comfortable in a social setting. He has discovered a talent for nature photography that befits his solitary nature but sometimes being labeled   as the “weird one” in the family have made him sort of an outsider, and he feels it deeply.

The Jasper family gets a serious guess-who’s-coming-to-dinner moment when Naz’s friend, an unfiltered and vibrant Aziza Houston (Kalyne Ashley Coleman) knocks on the door to return the phone charger Naz left in her car.

Claudine insists she join the family for dinner, sensing and hoping she is more to Naz than a mere friend.  Aziza is star-struck when she recognizes Solomon, but things start to turn toxic when she is quizzed about her relationship with Naz and cheerfully admits she is queer and “doesn’t date men.”  When it is revealed that Naz has agreed to become her sperm donor so she can have a child, it marks two head-on collisions with the Jaspers’ family values and the knives come out.

“Purpose” is a tale of two very different acts. Director Josiah Davis has skillfully managed the sharp difference in tone between Acts I and II, as the comedic tone of Act I gives way to more somber accusations, revelations, and a series of crises in Act II. They do give Jacobs-Jenkins and his characters the chance to address and ponder a panoply of issues, including faith and religious hypocrisy, sexuality, mental health, and toxic masculinity, to name just a few.

Through it all, Claudine is a constant in trying to put out fires, protecting Naz from a questionable decision and trying to keep Junior and his wife together. Even Solomon will get his “Come to Jesus” moment when he ponders how his own behavior has deeply affected his wife and children.

Amidst the wreckage, perhaps the family can find a way to start to heal the wounds and become one again.

If there is one where area “Purpose” falls a bit short, it is that Act II  might have been tightened up a bit after the lightning-quick pace of Act I. The series of how-did-we-get-here scenes and monologues have the running time of the show at three hours with one intermission.

The Huntington is renowned for its production values and attention to detail, and under Artistic Director Loretta Greco, that has not changed. Scenic designer Se Hyun Oh won the 2026 Norton Award for scenic design for a spectacular, multi-story home in last season’s Huntington production of “The Hills of California” and he has reprised that effort with another glorious effort for the Illinois home in this show.

Matriarch Claudine dresses to impress and is attired in exquisite costume designs by Celeste Jennings and the sound and original music by Kathy Ruvuna and the lighting by Martha Kent are also first-rate.

Once again, Jacobs-Jenkins has come to the Boston area and delivered the goods in a most impressive and powerful way.

The Huntington production of “Purpose.” Written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Directed by Josiah Davis. In the Calderwood Pavilion of the Boston Center of the Arts through Oct. 11. Huntingtontheatre.org