Appropriate

What to say about this show... If you know it, you probably love it. If you don't know it, you should probably read it! Branden Jacobs-Jenkins does a wonderful job of weaving a very naturalistic story together with large, epic chunks of stage directions that are left largely up to interpretation.

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One of the phrases used during preliminary meetings was "the structure of the house as a metaphor for America." This was something I really latched onto throughout the process, and I think a fantastic way of viewing the show.

 

As the story progresses, each character processes the facts they are presented with in different ways. The more they unearth, and fail to confront, as a family, the more their memories are twisted and shaped by the present. The more their memories diverge, the more the house around them falls apart until it is no longer capable of standing.

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This presented itself in two ways in the design. The first was the act of the house decaying. At first, the soundscape just reflects a creepy, old, possibly haunted house that creaks every now and then. But, as the show goes on and relationships continue to strain, we hear the house start decaying faster, and eventually realize the ghost of the father IS very much present, because these characters keep invoking him.

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Tangential to that sound story, it is obvious that how this family views their patriarch is very important. Their reactions to the information they learn in the play vary, but ultimately none of them effectively deal with the problem in front of them. This manifests in the soundscape as a repeating melody during the transitions that morphs and changes as each character's perception of the family patriarch shifts.

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These two ideas finally converge in one of those big, epic stage directions at the end of the show. In the soundscape, we hear the melody repeated and change as each character reflects on what they've said that they cannot take back. The house around them decays.The adults are broken. Have they broken their kids as well?

 

We, as a nation, must confront the reality that the people who built it were imperfect and sometimes outright wrong. We can ignore it, but that only pushes that work on to the next generation. On the surface, this show is about a deeply fucked up family. But underneath, it is a meaningful critique of white fragility and the lengths we go to to preserve some identities by ignoring others.