Primary Trust won last year’s Pulitzer Prize for Drama, but it’s not that good.
A character named Kenneth is both the narrator and protagonist of Eboni Booth’s script. Orphaned in particularly traumatic circumstances when he was ten, Kenneth has invented an imaginary friend named Bert, who provides a facsimile of companionship as Kenneth drinks himself into oblivion every night at a tiki bar called Wally’s in small-town Cranberry, New York. This arrangement provides a kind of equilibrium at least, but even that is upset when Kenneth loses the used-bookstore job he’s held for 20 years.
Then, tentatively — and with Bert’s help — Kenneth starts to make real-life friends. We know where this is going and there are few surprises along the way. Because Primary Trust is about abandonment and grief, it momentarily moved me sometimes but, because it’s shallow, it has left me with absolutely nothing to think about.
Under Ashlie Corcoran’s direction, this Arts Club production isn’t bad, but it’s uneven.
The night I attended, Andrew Broderick, who’s playing Kenneth, started out intoning his lines, floating them, if you know what I mean, as if delivering a sermon or reciting poetry. But he soon settled into a more straightforward and effective performance. Basically solid.
Broadus Mattison provides an effective counterweight as Bert, warmly reassuring, which is what that character needs to do: Bert is Kenneth’s strategy for calming himself, after all.
But, in terms of performance, it’s Andrew Wheeler who stands out. Wheeler plays a small handful of characters, including the bookstore owner and Kenneth’s prospective next employer. Without pushing it, Wheeler calmly fills every line, every pause with meaning. It’s a pleasure to see somebody so at home on the stage, an actor with such refined chops plying their craft.
Playing multiple characters, many more than Wheeler does although in shorter bursts, Celia Aloma is less successful. Because the assignment involves taking on so many personae so rapidly, this part is written as a showcase for virtuosity, but Aloma doesn’t fully deliver. She plays several servers at Wally’s, for instance, but, because a number of them share gestures, they’re not well differentiated. Oddly, Aloma makes several of her female characters kittenish.
Fortunately, one of the servers, Corinna, emerges as a major character and Aloma settles down as Corinna. It’s a relief and some resulting moments are touching.
Kevin McAllister’s set, in which a revolve circles through a façade of small-town storefronts, is efficient — and nicely lit by Itai Erdal.
But an okay, sometimes flawed production of a commercial and sentimental American script isn’t enough.
PRIMARY TRUST By Eboni Booth. Directed by Ashlie Corcoran. An Arts Club Theatre production at the Granville Island Stage until March 2 (tickets and information)
For the blind and those with low vision, VocalEye will describe Primary Trust on Tuesday, February 25, at 7:30 p.m. and Friday, February 28, at 8 p.m. The Arts Club offers $25 tickets for any seat in the house to patrons with a CNIB card or an Access 2 card. This price includes a free companion. To purchase these tickets, phone the Arts Club Box office at 604-687-1644 and mention VocalEye.
PHOTO CREDIT: (Photo of Andrew Broderick and Broadus Mattison by Moonrider Productions)
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