The title of tonight’s play is a grammarian’s pun. It can be an adjective—“fitting for the circumstances”—or, pronounced differently, a verb: “to take something for one’s own use, especially without the owner’s consent.” Which sense of appropriate is the appropriate one to appropriate?

This is just one of the many provocative questions posed by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ powerful play, which was a smash hit on Broadway last season. Jacobs-Jenkins wants us to ponder History—with a capital H—and how it shapes nations and societies, as well as history—lowercase h—and how it influences the course of a family’s life, or an individual’s. The history he’s concerned with is America’s, particularly the history of the American South. The forces that combusted into the Civil War a century and a half ago still live on, and the embers of that conflict continue to smolder in our national politics and personal lives. How should we think about the intersection of our country’s history and our own? Are the heirs to the Civil War still fighting it? Are we accountable for the sins of the generations that came before us? What, Jacobs-Jenkins asks, are the appropriate ways to respond to the legacies we inherit?

Jacobs-Jenkins examines these questions through the lens of a dramatic form well established in the American theatre: the dysfunctional family play. Explosive, dramatic, and suffused with lacerating and often uproarious comedy, this genre includes works like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and August: Osage County. In those plays, the dysfunctional families are white, as are their playwrights. Jacobs-Jenkins is Black, yet he’s created a story about a white family. He has spoken about his deliberate choice to emulate giant Black writers such as James Baldwin and Zora Neale Hurston, who have written about white family life from their perspectives. In doing so, Jacobs-Jenkins appropriates this dramaturgy and shapes it to serve a new set of ends. The result is striking. The play is at once furious and ironic, intimate and outlandish. There’s a clinical distance at work, side by side with a potent sense of empathy. Our theatre hasn’t seen anything quite like it, and I’m very glad it’s here.

I’m also thrilled to welcome a new director to our family with this show: the extremely gifted and supremely kind Steve Broadnax III. Steve is a Broadway veteran with a deft touch for new plays, having directed material by some of the most prominent writers at work today. He’s found a fresh approach to Appropriate, infusing it with vivid theatrical energy and a deep commitment to the humanity of the family at its center.

Appropriate launches the 2025 season at the Globe, which is packed chockablock with writing as muscular and revelatory as Jacobs-Jenkins’. Our lineup once again reflects our belief that the way to ensure the theatre’s vitality is to create work that engages with our culture—and this moment in it—with intelligence, wit, and compassion. You, our audience, tell us through your participation that you find this work resonant and meaningful. As we continue to rebuild from the challenges of the COVID pandemic and watch, with dismay, as theatres around the country struggle to survive, we are deeply grateful for your ongoing support.

Thanks for coming. Enjoy the show.

Barry Edelstein is the Erna Finci Viterbi Artistic Director of The Old Globe.
Any feedback on tonight’s show or any of the Globe’s work?
Email Barry at HiBarry@TheOldGlobe.org and he’ll get back to you!