‘Every beat is meticulously crafted': 6 ‘Purpose' Tony nominees offer an oral history of the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama

Yahoo

2 days ago

In a pivotal scene in Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' Purpose, Solomon Jasper, a Civil Rights icon, describes to his son Nazareth his newfound appreciation for beekeeping. Part of the appeal of bees to him is that 'they are literally born with a role to play.' Given the reception of critics, audiences, and awards bodies to Purpose, one could argue that the playwright and his ensemble members were born to play these roles as well.
Gold Derby sat down with six of the play's Tony Award nominees — performers Glenn Davis (Junior), Jon Michael Hill (Nazareth), LaTanya Richardson Jackson (Claudine), Harry Lennix (Solomon), and Kara Young (Aziza), and playwright Jacobs-Jenkins ­— to discuss the origins of the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama and the act of performing it eight times a week.
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Branden Jacobs-Jenkins: This play started as a commission from Steppenwolf Theatre Company, so that was really the impulse. When Steppenwolf commissions you, part of the brief is you write to their actors, and at the time there was also this conversation about their house style being 'muscular realism,' so I had these interesting parameters. I was told to go on their website and look at all the actors from the ensemble and choose some of them that I wanted to write for, and I immediately gravitated towards Glenn Davis, Jon Michael Hill, and Alana Arenas, who I'd actually seen in various shows in New York. I knew I wanted to write a family drama and I wanted them to be siblings, and that's all I really had.First of all, there's a million, trillion family stories, right? I find that so much of our identity as people intersects with our identities as family members, but it is only in these plays that we get to process those incredibly old emotions and dynamics. I'm really pleased when people tell me that they come to the show and they see their family. I love watching them, I love reading them, I love the game of bringing a bunch of actors who are not blood related into the illusion where it feels like they are.
Glenn Davis: I think Branden is a generational talent. He obviously has been lauded as such: He won the MacArthur Genius Award, he was showrunner of a television show [Hulu's Kindred], he has a whole host of plays that have been recognized for his artistry, including being a Pulitzer finalist twice. When I started as artistic director along with Audrey Francis in 2021, I had already done a workshop of this play in 2019. This play had already been commissioned, so what I did was recognize while in the room with Branden that he had something special. When we did the first scene of the play, already apparent in his language was a sense of timing, structure, understanding of story and place, setting, all the initial elements were there, so I thought this could be really thrilling, and it was really funny. He didn't know at the time where he wanted the play to go, he just knew he had a great set-up. When I became artistic director, I called his agent and said I want to program this play, when we only had 30-35 pages, and he was obviously surprised because you normally don't program a play when you don't know what it is just yet. But I believed in Branden.
Marc J. Franklin
Jon Michael Hill: Nazareth's character didn't change much at all, but since he is the narrator, he's got a lot of text and a lot of context that he gives to the audience, and all of the speeches have been streamlined. There's been some restructuring and completely new monologues in the second act. It's pretty extensive, the difference between what was performed in Chicago and what we have now. There are literally changes on every page. It's really hard to quantify what he's changed, because it was constant tweaking and sharpening and clarifying.
Harry Lennix: The chief change in terms of the play, for me, other than the refining of the language, has been in the chemistry of the cast. When you have actresses who are as talented at humor as Kara Young and LaTanya Richardson Jackson, it's going to add more laughs. It's a funnier show here than it was in Chicago. Our cast in Chicago was magnificent, of course, but this is a different city and it has a different temperature. In Chicago, it was a little close to home — the play is set in Chicago — but in New York, I think there's more distance, so the audience can see a little bit more the humor.
LaTanya Richardson Jackson: Phylicia Rashad, who directed it, made sure that it wasn't a moving freight train, but it felt like a moving freight train! It was a different process of having to learn lines every day, especially during previews, which was hard because you rehearse in the day and you do the play at night and try to implement the lines. But this company welcomed us and just plugged right into us as soon as we met them, so they made the process easy, easier than what it seemed because they were so welcoming.
Kara Young: The cast just really welcomed us with an open heart, open arms. The play was evolving and Branden was writing constantly, consistently, and we were all on it together, too, to some degree, so there was a lot of new things happening and we were all on the train. But it was one thing for these incredible actors, the four from Chicago, to be sitting with these characters for some time, and so you do have to get with the program and keep it going, but it was a deep dive and we wanted to do it, to really get there with them. We were welcomed and hugged and supported and loved.
Marc J. Franklin
Jacobs-Jenkins: That scene is one of the first things that I wrote for the show. That scene showed up pretty soon when I was starting to write. I'm homaging the very iconic dinner scene in August: Osage Country; when I was given that brief to write 'muscular realism,' that was the first thing that came to mind. It's pretty clear the actors are having fun doing it, and it helps to have a thing that the actors like to do because there's a constant source of inspiration happening. For me, that scene is really where it's hard to tell where my work ends and the actors' begins, because if you watch the show six times and you just focus on one of those actors in the dinner scene, each of them is telling a very specific story.
Lennix: It really is an ensemble piece, at no more important time than that time. That is the central section, in my view. In a basketball game, a player will get a hot hand and they'll start dishing the ball to that person because they are on a streak, and this is like being able to predict who's going to have the streak at any given time. You're just handing off the energy to another actor. I'm looking at Kara and LaTanya and Glenn be virtuosi. Alana Arenas, I think, in many ways sets the temperature when she has her beautiful aria, if you will. I look forward every night to seeing that bit.
Hill: I get to sit down and look at each of these titans in their craft. My back is to the audience, so folks can't really see what I'm doing or my face, but it's a lot of listening and eye contact and very intricate choreography with the food going around the table. There are five different things happening at all times and everyone has to be completely focused and locked in to really pull that scene off every day. It's completely fraught but also exhilarating.
Young: As Aziza, I'm clocking the emasculation of these two men by their father and really clocking how deeply this onion is being peeled to revealing the vitriol of Solomon Jasper and asking, 'Where is that coming from?' The disappointment is illogical in this moment because this is the first time that everybody has come together in two years. I also have to bring up the epic, epic Broadway debut of the one, the only Alana Arenas. I'm gagged every single night! I have to remind myself that I'm in the play sometimes because I'm watching her as an audience member, and I guess Aziza is, too.
Davis: I'm up there with five of the best actors I've ever worked with in my life, and each one has their own moment. Every night I look forward to it. Depending on the night or the audience, some laughs are bigger than others. There's always laughter, there's always surprise, there's always intrigue. Each one of us are doing things every night and surprising each other watching each other. I'm thrilled by each of those actors and once I get to it, I'm just excited. I'm on the edge of my seat like the audience is. Each one of these actors is so electric, so that scene flies.
Jackson: We sit at that table anew at every show. It's fresh and new for us because we look for the truth of what we're saying right then in the moment. Somehow, the energy that's needed and the freshness of the approach is just there with us because we see each other differently at every turn.
Marc J. Franklin
Jackson: Every time I do it, it takes my breath away. I am standing there having to recover from the violence of what I have just done. It's new every morning, it's fresh, it's an unexpected turn because that is not the way this family has been put together. It was all unexpected and unfortunate, but at that point, Claudine had to just follow through.
Hill: That one is a nightmare. I hate doing it, but that's just because our director really identified what that scene is about, and it's about a friendship cracking and beginning to disintegrate. The lovely thing that Branden's done is place these flaws in characters that you have to play genuinely, and they make the audience cringe and judge you, but that's exactly how it would happen in real life. It's painful yelling at Kara Young, the most delightful human on earth. Looking into her eyes and seeing her heartbreak is very difficult, but you have to execute that scene to justify what her character has to do later.
Young: My first thought when you ask that question is that you really can't save the world, you can only save yourself. Self-liberation is at the core at the end of that scene in a wild way. She is trying to help her friend, she is trying to defend him, she is trying to stand up for him, and yet she made a huge mistake. It's a heartbreaking thing. When you're trying to help someone that doesn't want to be helped, it really hurts. Aziza has never seen this side of her friend. This is a very surprising reaction, and Aziza's never seen the level of toxic masculinity come out of this very pure soul.
Marc J. Franklin
Davis: Junior is dealing with some very particular circumstances in terms of mental health. For an actor, you want to imbue him with a sense of urgency to make good on his name. He has a sense of urgency to do something magnanimous, to do something great as soon as possible, to impress, to rectify. As you alluded to, he overdoes it, he goes a little too far as one is prone to do when you can't see the forest for the trees. I have to give all credit to Ms. Phylicia Rashad, who helped me in this, and obviously Branden. It's a harrowing moment, but that's part of Branden's gift. He gives you something that is inherently tragic or harrowing and then juxtaposes it right up against something that is supremely hilarious.
Hill: You see two people with a gulf between them that are each making the effort to bridge that gap, so while it does feel gratifying, it's also helpful at the end of the play. They're both still really reaching for something and going after something with their words, so I think that really drives us through it. But when it's over, it feels special. I think what Branden's written is really transcendent. It ends up being one of those universal father-son theological, philosophical discussions that transcends our immediate reality. It takes on this epic context or feel. We look forward to that scene.
Lennix: I've told Branden and Jon that this is my favorite scene to do with another actor that I've ever done. I cannot think of another scene that I look forward to doing more every night. Jon is such a beautiful actor and so responsive, wherever I go he can go, and wherever he goes I try to go. The completion of these characters' journeys, at least for this evening in the theater, is beautiful. It's a beautiful written scene, my word!
Jacobs-Jenkins: I definitely don't write plays to win Pulitzers, so when you win it, you're like, 'Oh my God, this is sweet, this is the icing on the icing.' I'm very happy to have won it, honestly, because some of my favorite plays have won it. It feels so wild. The panel is made up of other writers, too, so it feels like it's the only real writing award in the theater because it's based on the script, not the production. In terms of how I look at it in my body of work, the truth is for every play, because I live inside the writing of them, they're all connected in ways that maybe aren't clear to people. This is in some ways the cousin to Appropriate, but there's also something about it that couldn't have been written unless I wrote The Comeuppance. I'm also aware that I'm on the young side in terms of the award, so I hope this isn't the only one in my lifetime.
Marc J. Franklin
Jackson: I was just so overwhelmed and overjoyed with pride and honor when he won [the Pulitzer]. I think I felt more emotionally than when I heard that I had been nominated for the Tony, quite frankly. That was such a major, major accomplishment because I want so much for all of you young people that you become everything that has been put inside of you. It is something that is written on the resume of my heart, and I will always, until I leave this earth, look at this moment and realize that God had given me such a miracle to live inside. It's a major accomplishment.
Hill: I don't think the feeling in the building has changed. We've felt this way about the play probably since Branden brought in the last 40 pages the night before first preview in Chicago and sat on the stage and read it, and there wasn't a dry eye. We are overjoyed to see Branden being recognized in this way and for it to be officially his installment in the great American play canon. We approach it with the same verve and vigor every night, and perhaps the audience comes in with something new, a different expectation because it has received this accolade, but our job is to really execute what we built and make this offering every night with the same inspiration as we did on first preview.
Lennix: When we started, we had half of a play, so in some ways I feel like I am in the DNA of this character now. I think Branden took certain conversations and poeticized them, put a lot of stuff that we talked about at the table when we were workshopping this play into the play as any great writer would do. It's very gratifying that the Pulitzer committee would select us. I think it's fitting. I hope that doesn't sound arrogant, but I don't know of a play that is this brave, that is this ambitious, and that is this insular: you take a little family, all of the action of the play must take place over a 12- or 14-hour period, so these are classical elements, these are elements of union, time, and space, the stuff that great writers of old have tried to achieve. It's been very gratifying, and I take some pride in the acknowledgement, in his acknowledge, of Branden being a Pulitzer-worthy writer.
Davis: As an actor, that's a cherry on top. The greatest honor for me is that the play is being recognized in this way with the Pulitzer. We've had one other Pulitzer Prize-winning play at Steppenwolf, and that was August: Osage County, so to be mentioned alongside Tracy Letts' fantastic play is the greatest honor.
Lennix: The commonality, I think, is almost unavoidable, that is, August chronicled the 20th century, he can be thought and argued to be the defining voice of that twentieth century in terms of drama on the American stage, and much can be said for Branden. Purpose is a definitive, I would dare say, representative work of the new millennium. No other play that I'm aware of at this point, a quarter of a century in, has so adroitly dealt with the causes that we're all dealing with: COVID, neurodivergence, expanding gender identities. This is something that probably could not have been written in August Wilson's lifetime, but August did for that century what I think Branden is doing for this one. It's not uncommon to have great poets writing dramatic literature, but somebody that exists who is aware of the politics of it, of the racial aspects of it, of the complexities that are unique to this American experiment in such a comprehensive way, this distinguishes these two men.
Jackson: Branden is the most consequential writer of our time, bar none. Because of Branden's relationship with himself and the world, he has been able to write women in a way that is different and less intellectual than August. There's something about the visceral nature of how Branden has written women that is different. I said to August one time, 'You've got to write me some women that sound like these men,' and he said, 'When I get to understand women that way, I will.' The way Branden has treated these women, there is something that is inherent in what he knows and what he sees that he's been able to capture and deliver. August's women, they are great intellectual women, but they don't really, to me, compare to the men because I don't know of a playwright who has written men as well as August. I think Branden, the breadth of Branden's genius, is he knows women in an intimate way.
Young: I have not really taken the moment to absorb the last four years, but I feel incredibly fortunate. I feel incredibly fortunate to have been part of these works and these writers and the brilliance, the majesty of these pens. I actually cannot believe these are the companies in which I'm surrounded. When you said it, it really hit me. Listen, I saw Martyna Majok and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and Lynn Nottage [Clyde's] continue to work on their plays. These people are masters at what they do. Every moment, every beat is meticulously crafted.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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