Signature Theatre: Primary Trust

 My faith in contemporary American theatre has been completely restored by Eboni Booth's, 2024 Pulitzer Prize winning play, "Primary Trust."  The heart of the play is Kenneth.  A man whose childhood was so traumatic that he created an imaginary friend named Bert.  For 20 years, since aging out of the child protective services boys home, he's worked in a little bookstore run by a curmudgeonly old man, Sam.  One day Sam tells him he's selling the store and moving to Arizona.  The last day is in two weeks and he gives Kenneth three months worth of pay to help him until he can find a new job.  Besides the bookstore, 6 to 7 days a week, Kenneth spends his evenings at Wally's--a local Tiki Bar--drinking Mai Tai's with "Bert" until the bar-tender cuts him off.  

All of this is just the set up.  The play is about how, over the next year, Kenneth discovers an inner resilience supported by occasional acts of kindness and punctuated by his ongoing struggle with mental wellness.  THIS IS THE BEST contemporary play of this type, I've ever seen.  It's better than "Dot," better than "Proof," and, yes, better than "The Waverly Gallery."  It is genuine in a way that was magical.  While not meant to be comic, there are moments that are so funny, so unexpected that I laugh without discretion.  And there are moments when I let the tears run down my cheeks, too.  It was, in short, an authentic experience for me.

The cast is magnificent.  But the star, Julius Thomas III is truly a star.  Fresh off a turn as A. Hamilton on Broadway, his list of credits on the "Great White Way" is long and impressive.  It took him a mere 3 minutes to have me utterly and totally in his pocket.  He commanded the performance and had a supporting cast that was game for the adventure.  Together they transformed a spare little peninsula of stage into a world of grace with imperfect triumphs of hope and joy and resilience.  

Where the story begins, Julius Thomas III as Kenneth

Mai Tai's at Wally's with Bert (Frank Britton)--who isn't there.

Finding a new job at Primary Trust Bank, with a new boss, Clay (Craig Wallace)

Drinks with a new friend, Corrina (Yesenia Iglesias)

Standing unaware on a precipice with Bert who's about to say good-bye.

Where the story is, one year later.