With ‘Purpose,’ Branden Jacobs-Jenkins Secures Spot as Broadway’s Most Scathingly Entertaining Chronicler of Family and Social Dysfunction
The playwright is an inheritor to American giants stretching from Eugene O’Neill to Tracy Letts, but with a voice and perspective that are distinctly of this moment.
In 2023, after a decade of earning acclaim and prestigious honors for his plays, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins made his Broadway debut with “Appropriate,” a hilarious, piercing account of a white Southern family forced to confront a legacy of racism. First staged at New York nine years earlier, the work scored Mr. Jacobs-Jenkins a Tony Award for best revival.
With his latest effort, “Purpose,” the playwright does more than maintain his momentum: He secures his place as Broadway’s most incisive and scathingly entertaining chronicler of family and social dysfunction — an inheritor to American giants stretching from Eugene O’Neill to Tracy Letts, but with a voice and perspective that are distinctly of this moment.
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