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Hi, I'm Ariana Grande. Hi, I'm Cynthia Erivo, and you're listening to the Broadway Podcast Network. Visit BPM FM to discover more. Wow, this house is cute. But can I really get in the game in this economy? I do have savings and I am responsible. Ish. Ugh, I should bury it. I'm being wild. But what if I'm not being wild though? Could I actually score a kick off your home buying journey with Zillow's new buyability tool. It makes it easy to find out what you can afford so you can get off the bench and onto the playing field with confidence. Check your buyability only on Zillow. It's that time of year when I literally have Nothing to wear. 30% off all Abercrombie dresses came at the perfect time. When I hear the words all dresses, I know I need to fill my cart. And the A and F meal address is at the top of my list. Use code Spotify AF at checkout for an extra 15% off almost everything through April 14, 2025 in stores and online in US and Canada. Exclusions apply. See details online. 30 off all dresses is valid in stores and online through April 14, 2025 in US and Canada. Excludes clearance online. Price reflects discount. Thank you very much. That's all. But we have a great dramatic finish. I'm sure you do, but Mr. Graham, Broadway. We've missed it. So we're leaving soon and taking June to star her in a show. Bright light, white light, rhythm and romance. The train is late, so while we wait, we're gonna do a little dance. Hello all you theater lovers both out and proud and on the DL. And welcome back to Broadway Breakdown, a podcast discussing the history und legacy of American theater's most exclusive address, Broadway. I am your host, Matt Koplik, the least famous and most opinionated of all the Broadway podcast hosts. And today is yet another review day. It's going to be a lot of these until Tony time, everybody. This is a double review day. But also the first review is going to be on the shorter side, which is Purpose. And that's because Purpose, by the time this episode comes out, will have been opened on Broadway for about a month now. You will have read those reviews. If you haven't seen it and are planning to see it, my review isn't going to make you feel more like you need to see it or sway you to not see it and whatnot. This is just as we cover the rest of the Broadway season. Purpose does run, though, until July. So if you are on the fence about seeing it. And listen to this episode. Maybe that'll help you make up your mind. Purpose is the most recent play by Brandon Jacobs Jenkins. It is a Steppenwolf Theater Company production that's being done at Second Stage. Brandon Jacobs Jenkins. I always have to say that in my head before I say it because I always want to say Brandon Jacob Jenkins, but it's Jacobs Jenkins. He is best known recently for Appropriate, which was a phenomenal night of theater that I loved about like a year and a half ago that I saw that. Yeah. At the Haze. And this is a newer play of his. This one centers around a prominent African American family living. I believe they're living in D.C. around D.C. yeah. And sort of the history of this family as well as the dynamics as they currently stand and sort of what's happened to them, what's going to happen to them and sort of their legacy and the legacy of African Americans in this country as well as just people. Something that I think that Brandon Jacobs Jenkins does very well is taking a microcosm, you know, select group of folks and then really making us find our own mirror to what's going on on stage as well as, you know, the mirror of society. And I think that that's something that a really talented playwright does well and that we don't always get. The thing about purpose, and I should say this now, unfortunately, Ms. Kara Young was out the performance of Purpose that I saw. Her lovely understudy, Sojourner Brown played Aziza. Huston and Journer did a wonderful job, thought they were very compelling, had a really clear perspective on the character. I would have loved to have seen what Kara had done with it. But I'll also say this, Aziza wasn't necessarily my favorite character in the show. So even though I didn't see Kara, and I'm sure Kara would have brought a lot of her Ms. Young, if you're nasty energy to it. I don't think that I missed anything about the play, or rather to say I don't think my perspective on the play would have changed much with Carrie Young in the show that day. Which is to say Purpose I found to be very good. I think I went in with maybe a little too high expectations because I did really love Appropriate. And the reviews overall for Purpose were extremely strong. One of the few dissenting voices was Jesse Green, who was mixed, ish, positive on it. And you all know that I'm not here to ring Mr. Green's bell, but I will say I was a Little more in line with him than some of the other critics. On purpose, I was positive on it, but I wasn't effusive. The first thing that should be said about purpose is that it is directed very well. Phylicia Rashad, who is a very talented actress who has some opinions about Bill Cosby that I don't necessarily share, has turned out to also be a very talented director. Surprise, surprise. Sometimes really great actors make really great directors. And she's done a really fantastic job with the ensemble work here and small little nuances of characters and bits of staging and then has a really clear perspective. It's also very beautifully designed set. It's a gorgeous family mansion with a lot of taste and history about it. The cast overall, I found very strong. I had a couple of standouts, and I'll get to those in just a moment. The main character, I guess you could say, if there is one, would be Nazareth Jasper of the Jasper family. Naz, as he's often called, played by John Michael Hill. Naz is the narrator of the show as well as the. I guess you could say, like the inciting character of the show. Nazareth sort of rejects his family's legacy and goes off on his own journey and doesn't go into politics and civil liberties in the way that his father did. His father, Solomon Jasper, played by Harry Lennox, we find out, is a very famous historical civil rights activist who, you know, marched with Martin Luther King and. And. And did a great deal for black families and black citizens of America throughout his time and has sort of become, I guess you would call him. They call him Reverend. I don't know if he's like an official reverend or if it's sort of like a title. But he, you know, he has. He has made a place for himself in history and his wife, played by Latonya Richardson Jackson. Claudine, she is a, you know, she is, technically speaking, a lawyer, but she has not practiced in a very long time. She sort of gave up her career to be Solomon's unofficial first lady of their family as well as kind of, we find out, cleaning up a lot of his legal messes that are all happening behind closed doors. And Naz comes to celebrate Claudine's belated birthday. And his friend Aziza, that's usually played by Carrie Young in his. In this, my performance is played by Sojourner Brown. She is a former neighbor of Nazareth's who, we learn, decided, you know, she's. She's a lesbian who. Or queer woman who wants a baby. And because she Likes Nazareth, who we learn is most likely asexual and possibly even on the spectrum, but there's never been an official test for him to be diagnosed as such. She likes him. She finds him a kind and smart person. He's also a very talented photographer. And she, before the events of the play, we learn that she and he went to Niagara Falls so she could receive his semen to make a baby. And then she drops him off at his family's for Clawdeen's belated birthday party. And then Aziza ends up coming in because he forgot his phone charger and she's delivering it. And the family misinterprets this as thinking that she is his girlfriend. And because it is snowing bleakly outside, they insist that she stay with them. Only eventually they find out the truth, that they are not together, that she is queer, and that they are aiming to make a baby so she can have a child. The other two characters are Nazareth's brother, Solomon Jr. Jasper, who they all call Junior, played by Glenn Davis, who I saw, or whom I saw in Downstate at Playwrights Horizons twice. Phenomenal actor. And then Solomon Junior's wife, Morgan Jasper, played by Alana Arenas. More on Alana Arenas in a second. So this. This is all like, you know, very strong family, meaty drama. The other thing I haven't mentioned is Junior has recently come out of prison. He was arrested and found guilty of corruption and money laundering, and he and his wife both have been convicted, but they have separate sentences, so that way they can have proper childcare for their children. Junior went first, and now there's sort of like a little brief stint before Morgan has to go in. Morgan is at the house with the whole family. She does not want to be there. She is doing as much as she can to steer clear of all the festivities. She mostly stays up in her room. She is corralled into coming down for dinner, which she enters the staircase in what I can only describe as like, a faux poochie top and the biggest sunglasses you've ever seen coming down like a goddamn regal queen. It was incredible. And we learn sort of what's been going on with this family and where the family is heading. And again, certain skeletons that maybe have been in the closet of this family. Similar vibes, a bit to appropriate, but also with like, a little touch of Cat in a Hot Tin Roof. I think Brandon Jacobs Jenkins is someone who finds inspiration from great theater of the past and puts his own modern spin on it and gives it enough of his own tweaks that it doesn't feel necessarily like a retread. It feels like a brand new story. What I really liked about this play, besides the ensemble work, was I really found it to be incredibly funny and had a lot of interesting insight into generational gaps and sort of how one generation can be the dominating progressive side of culture. And then as they get older and they start to get more comfortable and honestly more bitter at the world and at the generations behind them, they start to get a lot more rigid and conservative in their ways. Even if they, technically speaking, marched on Washington, they now are in a state where they look down on such rambunctious behavior in the younger generations. And that's something that we see with Solomon Sunny Jasper Harry Lennox. He is a man who has made a great deal of history, has meant so much to so many people, including people like Aziza, who just can't get over that she's in this house and then ends up kind of turning on the family when she sees just how dysfunctional they are. And also what a rather awful father Solomon is to his two sons. He does not understand Nazareth's sexuality and thus he dismisses it. We also learned that Junior most likely has some sort of mental disorder that also has not been diagnosed because both Nazareth and Junior's parents wouldn't let them get tested. So they absolutely have something going on that we don't know for sure because the parents refuse to let it get done. So it's all sort of speculation. While this is all happening, by the way, Nazareth John Michael Hill is constantly narrating to the audience. This is a great tool that, in my opinion, is overused. It provides a great deal of information, it provides a great deal of perspective on Nas, but it is a device that I wish that if Brandon Jacobs Jenkins were to take another pass at this play, and he can, you know, he wrote the play that he wanted, so he can do whatever he so damn well chooses. But if he's looking to take another pass at it for a play that is 2 hours and 50 minutes, I can't say that all of it flies by. And there are places where things can absolutely be trimmed and tweaked, one of which is narration. Now, those of you who know that I wrote a play also know that my play has quite a bit of narration in it. But the narration does not break up the scene work every five minutes. There are monologue sections that break the fourth wall. And there's. There are two sequences in my play where narration is happening throughout a dramatic sort of montage. One might say, but it is woven in and out. It never fully stops the action. The narration in purpose absolutely stops the action, intentionally so. And sometimes it's very nice, and sometimes it is Nazareth explaining the subtext out loud, which for me takes away a lot of the power of the. Of what could be unsaid, what could not be said. Right. It's for those of you who maybe are more musical theater people and not drama people. It's the saying out loud what the. What a song would not be addressing. So, for example, in Matilda, a musical I like very much, There's a song Ms. Honey sings called My House. And Matilda is telling Ms. Honey, your aunt pushed you out of your house and your father is dead. Basically. Not basically, but basically saying to her, like, your aunt pushed you out of your house and your father is dead. Like, aren't you angry? And then Miss Honey sings the song My House, and it's her taking ownership of what she has. And the undercurrent is she is angry, she is bitter, she is frustrated, but also, this is her safe space, this is her freedom. And she's not addressing the things that make her angry. She's only going to talk about the things that she has control over. That's a very powerful thing to do. If there all of a sudden was a bridge where she then goes on a Jason Robert Brown esque musical, word Vomit about all the things that frustrate her, then yes, I would then say, okay, well, now the song has lost its power because we're saying the invisible stuff out loud. And a lot of the narration that Naz has in purpose is saying the quiet stuff out loud. Things that we don't need to say, things that we can interpret for ourselves. And that is just. It's such a simple thing for me in terms of a tweak where I'm like, I think, go in and make it an assignment to cut out half of Nazareth's inner monologues and you can pick exactly which stuff adds up to the half of his monologues. If you want to take away all of the Act 2 stuff, or just some of the. The Act 2 stuff and some of the Act 1 stuff, or all the stuff at the top of Act 1, whatever Brandon Jacobs Jenkins thinks is correct. But I do think removing half of that narration would be helpful. The other thing I'll say is that while Act 1 is a compact, insightful and hilarious first act, I wouldn't necessarily say it's perfect because it does go on a bit. Partly because the narration, Act 2 goes on for a lot of bits and has some plot points that kind of meander and go off into nothing. There's a whole element with Junior, with bees, with his father's rifles downstairs that all kind of culminate into a messy breaking point. But it all just sort of continues onwards and. And goes from hilarious or. Or 10 or very tense to just going on for five minutes too long. And that same is also true of a lot of the dialogue in Act 2. As I said, there's narration as well that should absolutely be cut. But especially in the last 20 minutes of the play, there are a lot of lines that Brandon Jacobs Jenkins writes that are insightful, powerful and concise. They are razor sharp. And you think, oh, wow, that's a great line. And that encompasses so much of what's been going on in this play, only for that character to then continue speaking on exactly what they just said, not going on into a new direction, like still talking about what they were talking about after having landed the plane. They then continue to try to fly the plane some more. And it frustrates me because when you hear dialogue as good as what he can write and then hear what absolutely should be the capping point, it's not that I necessarily am so good at writing that I am coming on high and telling people how to write, but I will say I do have an intuitive sense for other people's writing of when they've nailed it and then when they go on for too long or when they haven't gone on for long enough. And there are so many times in Act 2 in the second half, especially there's a scene between Sunny Jasper, the father, and Naz at the end where there's so many moments where both characters land the plane and then they just continue to talk. And it is. It was very frustrating for me. I would sit there. No, no, like, you got it. You're done, you're finished. Move on to the next bit. Now, especially as we were, quote, unquote, wrapping up moments, I was like, can we actually wrap this up now for real? Real. There's also a moment with Latonya Richardson Jackson, as everything is sort of kind of breaking up with the whole family and Aziz is trying to leave and everything's going on. And Latanya as Claudine, she is sort of vouching for herself. She is standing up for herself to each character. And then especially talking to Aziza about children and being a mother. And you do not get to choose your child. The child chooses you. And you don't know you may not be fit to be a parent. If you want the perfect circumstances for each child, like, it is a gift given to you by God, and you sign for the gift, no matter what comes inside. You're. You're accepting it with understanding that you will love whatever comes inside. And it's a great image, right? It's a great idea. And it's so. And it, again, it sort of perfectly lands the plane. And then she starts to repeat things she had said two minutes earlier. And it is. It's the musical theater person in me and the writer in me and the critic in me and the dramaturg in me that hears this and goes, no, no, no, we got it. We got it so hard. It's as if. So those of you who may know Steel Magnolias, which in my opinion, is not a great play, but it's a good play and it's actually a better movie. And it's not a great movie, but it's a good movie. But it has moments where the playwright really does sort of nail the line and knows when to not have that character continue talking. And when Shelby and her mother. So in the play, Shelby and her mother are talking about how Shelby is pregnant and she's excited because she wants to have a baby. And her mother is nervous because Shelby is diabetic and her body's already kind of been ravaged by diabetes. And she's been warned that having a baby could really cause trauma to her body. And in the play, the way that this scene happens is her mother. I think it's Truvy. I think that. No, Truvy is the woman who owns the shop. I forget the name of Shelby's mother, but it's Sally Field in the movie. Sally Field in the play version of Steel Magnolias is sitting in one of the hair salon chairs, and she's stuck there because the power has gone out, but she needs to stay under the lamp or whatever it is, so when the power does come on, she doesn't ruin her hair as she's getting it set. So Shelby is talking with her mother. Her mother can't move. So they're having this whole conversation together. And when they're sort of going back and forth about yes or no, have the baby, don't. Shelby finally says what's a very famous line from Steel Magnolias? I would rather have 20 minutes of something wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special. And that is when the power comes back on and sort of their argument, because the scene has to go in a new direction. Now, and that is smart writing, because that's the playwright going, I just wrote a great line. I can't have her continue talking after that. So we have to move the scene in a different direction. And I would argue Purpose is a better play than Steel Magnolias, but it could take a note from that sort of economy and knowing when to move on. We say ironically, as somebody who has a very famously long podcast. That said, again, wonderful performances across the board, I want to give a special shout out to Alana Arenas, who I Nobody informed me that Morgan Jasper was going to be my favorite character in Purpose. She has lost the most because of what's going on with this family. She entered this family having worked her way up with her working class mother. They were cleaning houses, all in the rich areas of their town. She moved to Maryland, meets junior, marries him after, I think, even getting a law degree, marries him and sort of gives up her degree to be his first lady, in the same way that Claudine became Solomon's first lady and gives him two children only for him to then completely fuck them over. And now she has to go to jail because of this for something she didn't do and had no knowledge of. And she's looking to get out of the family. She's looking to get what she needs so she can live a life, have her children. But ultimately, this family has fucked her over so much that even that's not really possible. And even if she gets what she wants, it's not going to be a lot. And Morgan has such disdain for everyone in the room, but she's also going through a lot of pain. And she's also setting up tests for everyone in the family just to sort of see who's on her side and who actually cares about her. And she's learned that Sunny, her husband, doesn't really care about her. He likes her fine. He likes what she's done for him. And he sort of cares about her when it's convenient for him. When he wants something and she gives it to him, he appreciates that, but he's not really willing to risk anything or put himself out on the limb for her, which is something we've talked about on this podcast of sort of conditional love. I think many of us have experienced that before, right? And it hurts when you love someone and you care about someone and you've given so much for someone thinking that they'll do the same for you and have sort of gaslight yourself into thinking they've done it for you. And then when the chips are actually down, you realize how little they've actually given you, how little they're willing to give you, how little they're willing to give up for you. And so you see a woman like Morgan, who has reached the end of her rope, is trying to figure out an exit strategy while also not giving two shits about how she comes off to anyone in that family. So that dinner scene, it's very Steppenwolf. It was giving me August Osage county vibes. It was fraud with tension, while also being hilarious. The gift that Junior gives his mother for her belated birthday is pretty fantastic. And also, as Naz calls him, the king of the pivot, how he uses that gift for his own political gain. And then his father ripping him a new asshole, and then Morgan just sort of coming out and ripping them all a new asshole. It's wonderful. And Alanna Arenas just. God, she does so much with so little. Fires bazookas when she needs to, but just is. So. It's a wonderful performance because in the wrong hands, Morgan could just be comic relief and could just be, you know. Yes. Work Mama boots the house down. It is that, but with an undercurrent of rage and toxic poison. And I loved it. I loved watching her. Every time she was on stage. I was thrilled and wanted more of her. But in Brandon Jacobs Jenkins defense, he uses just the right amount of her. So the fact that I wanted more is not the fact that the play had a failure. It's just like they knew what I needed and they gave it to me full out. Overall, yes, I recommend Purpose. It's not quite the masterpiece that I think Appropriate is, I think, but also Appropriate supposedly had quite a few iterations between its New York productions. And Jesse Green even acknowledged so in his review for the Broadway production with Sarah Paulson. I mean, half of his review was mapping out all the changes that Jenkins did and improved the show, which is an issue I always have with Green, is like, he'll talk about source material of shows or changes shows have made and just spend half of his review talking about that instead of the show itself. But I'm interested to see if Jenkins does another pass at purpose, if there's anything he would finesse about it. Because I think it could use a little sharpening. There's so much meat there. It's just about curing it a little more. The characters are all well defined. The drama is good. It's just about. Yeah, it's just about sharpening. It's about cutting some of the fat, I think. And that is, you know, that's a great problem to have. I think cutting is the easiest thing to do in the world. So if that is my only real major note for purpose, then they're playing with house money as far as I'm concerned. That's purpose for right now. Tony wise, I think they're absolutely getting nominated for play. Probably going to get nominated for director and scenic design, maybe lighting as well. The lighting works a lot with Naz's inner monologue and the regular scene work. And then acting wise, I mean, listen, I obviously did not see Carrie Young, but you never bet against Carrie Young when it comes to featured actress in a play. And she could be going four years in a row now. For nominations, I would absolutely nominate Alana Arenas. I feel like latanya Richardson Jackson is going to get nominated, but I would really love it if Alanna got in of the Men. Honestly, I would say Glenn Davis was my favorite and he had a really hard role. John Michael Hill is most likely going to be considered lead for this, which is fine. I think it's pretty much an ensemble piece. But John Michael Hill is very much the largest part of the show. And I think he never leaves the stage as far as I'm concerned. If I can recall correctly, I think he's the only one who never leaves the stage. But yeah, I mean, I think it's got strong Tony chances, at least for nominations. I can't rightfully say that this is an upset for best play to win, but, I mean, hey, anything could happen. But to talk more about Tony chances and what could possibly win in some play categories, let's take a quick break and then talk about John Proctor as the villain, shall we? So let's take a break. Billy, I'd be to dinner with you. How do you mean? You're the top. Yeah, you're an arrow collar. You're the top. You're a Coolidge dollar. You're the nimble tread of the feet of Fred Astaire. Some things work better together, like nars soft matte complete concealer and radiant creamy concealer. Soft matte complete concealer. Erases and blurs imperfections with full coverage. Then radiant creamy concealer evens and brightens with a luxurious texture and radiant finish. Two concealers, one flawless look. 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So don't just dream about that trip. Book it with Priceline. Go to your happy price. Priceline this episode is brought to you by Amazon. Sometimes the most painful part of getting sick is the getting better part. Waiting on hold for an appointment, sitting in crowded waiting rooms, standing in line at the pharmacy. That's painful. Amazon One Medical and Amazon Pharmacy remove those painful parts of getting better with things like 247 virtual visits and prescriptions delivered to your door. Thanks to Amazon Pharmacy and Amazon One Medical Healthcare just got less painful and we're back. So now we are moving on to John Proctor Is the Villain the play. Which is the reason why this episode is dropping when it does, because even though I did not go on a press night, I was not offered a press ticket. I do just still want to kind of wait until the show opens to release my review of it. Don't get too comfy with that because there might be some shows coming up that I might release reviews for, even though their opening nights wouldn't have come yet just because I didn't get those press seats and thus I am not beholden to an embargo. And sometimes I just want to say fuck it. That said, John Proctor is the Villain is by Kimberly Belflower, directed by Donya Taymor, and if you have been listening to this podcast, you've been listening to me talk about the season and the Tony Awards. I have not made it a secret that this play sounded like my worst nightmare just based off of the bylines, the log lines that they were putting out about it, sort of what the premise was and what it was tackling. It just I am always kind of skeptical of things that I'll look back on past works and then talk about, like how it's Problematic, actually, we get so many, you know, YouTube video essays about that and bad Buzzfeed and Vulture articles about that shit. And so it's sort of like my trigger now. First of all, John Proctor as the villain isn't what they promote it as. That's not what it's about. It's not about a bunch of gen zers in a classroom talking about how the Crucible. How the Crucible is problematic. It's a little more complicated than that. And I also want to say right up front, I would like to apologize to this play because this play turned out to be quite a surprise for me, a very pleasant surprise. If you don't want to hear any spoilers or intricacies of the play and kind of want to go in fresh, you can stop it now and just know that I really liked this. I highly recommend it. It is towards the top of my rankings so far of the shows this season. But if you want to get a little more in depth as to why I feel that way, we can continue. John Proctor is the villain. Takes place in a small town in Georgia, specifically in a high school circa 2018. It's like late 2017, early 2018, right as the new rise of the MeToo movement is starting. And while when the play begins, we're following four female friends, I think that's their in their junior year of high school, second semester of their junior year. And they are looking to start a feminism club sort of as a response to MeToo. And it's very funny based off of how ill equipped they are and how ill informed they are. But they are eager to learn and eager to be supportive. And, you know, they all come from different walks of life. Three of them have known each other forever. One of them is kind of new to the school. She just came from Atlanta, so she's more sort of like considered the big city kid in the school. There's the type, a Tracy Enid flick student, and then there's the girl who's a little more sexual and she's very popular and very rich. And then there's another girl who's also very popular, but she's much more demure and religious. And the religious girl has recently broken up with her longtime boyfriend. And she's sort of dealing with the ramifications of that because he cheated on her with her former best friend who has since been on a sabbatical from school. That friend is played by Sadie Sink, by the way. So, in summary, we have Shelby is the character that has been on sabbatical I believe Bailey. One second. Yes. Yes. Is it Bailey? No. Or is it Ivy? Yes. Ivy is the one who is the rich, popular, and kind of more promiscuous student. And then there is. Where? Is it Lee? Hmm. No. Lee is. Sorry, I'm trying to go off of names and performers. Nell. Nell is the student who just came from Atlanta, and she's new this year and doesn't really know many of the other students, but she's kind of acclimating. And then there's Beth, who is the type a Tracy Enid flick student. And then Raelyn. Raelyn is the popular, more conservative Christian student. And Raelyn has broken up with her boyfriend Lee because Lee cheated on her with Shelby. And then on top of all of that, there is Mason, who's another student of the. Of the class that they're in. And they're all being taught by their favorite teacher, played by Gabriel Ebert. That is Mr. Smith. Carter Smith. Bailey Gallagher is the character that is the, like, guidance counselor of the school. And like I said, all these students are sort of going through turmoil in their own lives as MeToo is sort of rising up. So the female students want to make this feminism group, and as they're doing that, Raelyn is sort of dealing with her ex boyfriend, Lee, as well as the sexual dynamics of their relationship. Part of the reason why he cheated on her with her best friend is because he was sexually frustrated, because they know she wouldn't go all the way with him because of her religion and because of her own insecurity and her not really desire to have sex with him. And what might be. What we might learn is that she might not want to have sex with any boys, that she might actually be gay or at least, you know, bicurious or bisexual or pansexual. But there's definitely an element of relan that is much more interested in the female sex than the male sex. But she's. But that's all very repressed because of her upbringing and because of societal norms. And Ivy is also kind of a little more, like, sexually confident. But as news of her own father coming onto the press of, like, assaulting and sexually harassing his employees comes out, that's kind of throwing her into chaos. She starts off far more confident and easygoing, and then once it's revealed that her father is being accused of assault, she sort of retreats into herself and becomes far more skittish. And then in the middle of all this is Nell, who, you know, also has, you know, been. Who is experienced but is trying to kind of create a new Persona for herself as a new girl in school. And then, God, I keep forgetting her name. Beth. Beth, the nice straight A student who's sort of the glue of the friend group, who wants to kind of keep feminism club on track and is also very much adoring of their teacher, Mr. Smith. Gabriel Ebert. I mean, they all love the teacher, but Beth is very much like, considers herself his right hand man, his girl Friday, if you will. When Sadie sings, Shelby comes back. That throws everyone sort of into a bit of tension because Shelby left very abruptly six months prior. And some people think it's because she cheated with Raelyn's boyfriend Lee. Some people think something else might have happened, that she might have had a psychotic episode. It's all very unclear. And while this is happening, they have now been assigned to read the Crucible in English class by Mr. Smith. And he comes in to the play talking about its relation to McCarthyism and how John Proctor is a very flawed but very noble hero of the show. And Shelby, Sadie Sink, when she comes in, all in an English class that they have together. She kind of comes in with a different angle on it about John Proctor and how he is in the play and how Abigail Williams is and how the play sort of treats its female characters and what Arthur Miller might have intended, but what he actually ended up writing and how it comes off today. And the students are not anti the Crucible. They actually really like the play and they like a lot of the stuff that it has to say. It's more that there's now a difference of opinion about what exactly it has to say and also maybe what the play could do on a new draft if Arthur Miller lived to see 2018. And as it so happens, there is more twists and turns within the friend group and within the high school itself. Again, this is where spoilers come in. As Sadie Singh, Shelby is in this English class with everybody and is going off about why Abigail Williams lied about seeing witches and why she lied about John Proctor's wife and all of these things. There's a. There are two camps of, you know, the young girls in the play are lying and they are ultimately the villains because of all the torment that they create. And then you have someone like Shelby and others in her camp. Nell kind of is in her camp on this, of why these girls might create the kind of chaos they did because they had no other way to speak out, to have a voice. All the things that might have happened to them that probably did happen to them sexually, mentally, physically, that they couldn't go to anybody towards and get any help for. And going crazy, for lack of a better word, because of no outlet to take out all of their pain and trauma and frustration and being silenced. And the only way that they could be heard is these accusations and sort of tearing up the town in process. And Shelby, Sadie zeroes in on the relationship between John Proctor and Abigail Williams and specifically the power dynamic, the age gap, him being her employer, them having an affair, and him trying to deny it and erase it, and basically treating her and calling her a whore. And Shelby thinking that that is unfair, and you can't erase that. And it all boils down to the end of the play of how Jean Proctor, according to Arthur Miller, dies this noble death because he will not tarnish his name. And Shelby kind of takes it a little more literally, of like, your name is your name, and you can always change it, and it doesn't mean anything, but your body is your body, and what happens to your body, what you do with your body, what people do to your body, is not necessarily permanent, but it lives there, and you cannot turn away from the things you've done to somebody else. Which all culminates in her admitting to everyone that she had previously had an affair with their teacher, Gabriel Ebert, which sort of blows up the whole classroom. And we go into the next scene, which is a few days later, Shelby is at home. Gabriel Ebert is with his wife, and sort of, you know, in isolation as the students kind of figure out how to continue on studying the play and. And live their lives. And there's absolutely discourse among the girls of whether to believe Shelby or not. You know, of course, this is also on top of Ivy's father being accused of things. So Ivy doesn't want to believe Shelby. She wants to believe that their teacher is good. Of course, Beth wants to believe that their teacher is good because she likes their teacher. Nell and Raelyn are a little more skeptical. And Raelyn obviously is confused because she's still mad at Shelby for what she did with her boyfriend. But she also can see that her former best friend is in pain because she knows her so well. Their guidance counselor, who at this point has been a very distant character, now is sort of in the thick of it. And certain pieces of information about Gabriel Ebert comes out through dialogue that kind of raises red flags for all of us. And then the end of the play is Shelby and Raelyn performing their presentation for their final grade, which is sort of the end of their term with this teacher in English class, because then Shelby will go to a different class, and Gabriel Ebert will still teach, but he'll just be away from Shelby. The school board basically decides that he's innocent because there's no proof of Shelby's claims. And some people believe her, some people don't, but in a lot of ways, damage is done. And one of the students that Gabriel Ebert tries to keep on his side is Beth, the sweet, straight. A, you know, straight lace student. And she chooses to believe him that he is innocent and that they are still friends, and she is on his side. And then something about Shelby and Raelyn's presentation sort of sparks with all the girls, because all the girls are at the breaking point, right? There's so much infighting, there's so much confusion, there's so much tension. They all could snap. And Shelby and Raylan, for their final presentation, everyone is tasked with coming up with a scene for two characters in the Crucible that do not interact or do not share the stage alone together. And Raylan and Shelby choose Elizabeth Proctor and Abigail Williams. And the whole point of it is that these two characters do not talk about John Proctor. They start to. And then they go, I don't want to. I want to talk to you and learn more about you. Abigail, why did you dance? Why did you know? Why did you start making accusations? All these things and them talking about what it means to be a woman of that time, mirroring what it is to be a woman now. And then this all goes into a dance piece that they do. They really like interpretive dance, so they do an interpretive dance piece. And even though they technically hit their five minute limit and Gabriel Ebert keeps trying to get them to stop, other girls in the class stand up and let them finish and sort of get in his way to keep him from stopping their presentation. The very, very last beat of the play is Beth, the student that has been most on Gabriel Ebert's side, who we've learned through, again, little pieces of information, also has her own kind of inappropriate relationship with him. As far as we know, nothing sexual, but absolutely manipulation and absolutely crossing the lines between student and teacher of what is appropriate. We learn that he's. That they've been. That they text each other. She claims, oh, it's just because he offers me book advice of what to read, and he thinks that I'm very smart and he gives me extra credit and he cares about me as a person, but they also just talk outside of class without any other supervision, and it's not great. And the way he speaks to her when he Comes back after Shelby's accusations is absolutely a manipulation. And the last beat of the play is as Shelby and Raelyn's dance piece ends. You see Beth sort of pop up from her desk and look at Gabriel Ebert and she starts to move forward and that's when the lights go out, which is a wonderful piece of interpretation. What is she moving towards? Is she moving towards to join Shelby and Raelyn in their dance? Other girls in the class have joined. Nell has joined. One of the boys has joined. The guidance counselor has joined in and stopping Gabriel Ebert from stopping their presentation. So one wonders, is Beth coming in for that? Is she coming in with some sort of realization she now has about their teacher, of maybe something about their relationship? Or maybe she has a repressed memory about him that she needs to get out? It's unclear, but it is a fascinating moment. What I really loved about this play is a. It is very funny. It is also perhaps the most accurate, or not, if not the most accurate, what feels the most accurate, at least the most genuine, the most organic representation of Gen Z in media right now. Definitely on stage. If not, you know, all other forms of pop culture, it is, of course, a little heightened. It's stage. And so some kids are maybe a little more articulate than others, and there might be some moments that feel a little. That can feel a little pushed, but overall, it does feel very natural. There is a. Every character sort of has shorthand in terms of what pop culture they know, shorthand in terms of inside jokes that they have and just a good cadence for each character. The show does not pander in a way that I really appreciate, considering the subject matter it's tackling. It could easily go for giant easy laughs and giant easy feel good pat on your back moments. Now, that's not to say that it doesn't have a few of them. There are moments when characters like Raelyn, who loves Taylor Swift and quotes her all the time, uses a Taylor Swift quote against her ex boyfriend in a way that the entire audience erupts and cheers. In some ways, it's an easy line, but we have established for the hour and 40 minutes leading up to this line that Raelyn loves Taylor Swift, quotes Taylor Swift all the time, and is dealing with her own inner turmoil, with her past with her ex boyfriend and what she might want from him presently or in the future, and also the intentions of his redemption because they have moments together where he's trying to get back in her good graces and talks about what he's struggling with and how bad he feels and all of this stuff. But you also see elements of violence, elements of frustration. And even Mason, the other boy in their class, who for the most part is portrayed as a kind of overly simple but well intentioned dolt. He joins Feminism Club and he sort of connects with Nell over, you know, English class homework and learning more about feminism and the MeToo movement from feminism Club. And he takes sort of everything at face value. But then he has a moment that's kind of gross regarding Shelby. He says something to Shelby that's very gross and very misogynistic. And when Shelby leaves out of, you know, hurt and disgust, the other girls are like, why did you do that? And he said, well, I was just here to support you guys. I know you guys don't like her, and you told me to support women, so I was supporting you by attacking Shelby, which is an interesting dynamic, right? Of if there's. If we are. If we are supporting all women, what does that mean? Because not every woman likes each other, and not every woman is a hero in the same way that not every gay man is a hero. Not every person of color is a hero. Not every transgender person is a hero. You know, the human race is complicated, and a lot of us suck real hard. If you're a solid person, you don't suck all the time. Maybe not the majority of the time, but we've all had our moments. And Mason thinking that supporting women is just whatever women are close to him. It's this sort of. It's less of actually understanding equality and equilibrium and just trying to be well liked by whoever is closest to him. He's following the acceptance and he's following the love rather than actually understanding the inner dynamics of being an ally. And it's a very well timed moment. It can feel a little tricky because Mason is such a simplistic character, but in a lot of ways, that's also sort of the beauty of it, right? He takes everything at face value. So he would kind of flip flop really hard in how he approaches each female character in the play. The more he's learning, right? And it makes the girls sort of question their own ethics and their own intentions by starting Feminism Club, how they are acting towards other women. They say they want to believe victims, but the moment it gets put in their own backyard and it's men that they personally know, that's when it gets complicated, which I think is something that we see all the time, right? Think of all the people in theater who've been accused of, you know, acts that are Even if it's like middling to vile, right? You'll always see people kind of come out and defend them because those people have memories of that accused person sort of standing by them and being there for them. And people want to hold on to the good memories that they have, and they don't want to recontextualize how they know this person. I mentioned her in the Purpose episode, but, you know, that's sort of one of the things with Felicia Rashad that's been really hard for all of us and her is when Bill Cosby's accusations came out again. She was someone who didn't really want to believe the victims because he had been so good to her. And she was like, this is the Bill that I know, and the Bill that I know would never do any of this. And I can't imagine it. And that is sort of where a lot of the female characters are at. And John Proctor is the villain. The men that they know are so sweet and so nice. How could they do such awful things? Gabriel Ebert is such a wonderful teacher and he loves his wife and they. And they're religious, but they're not, you know, super, super Bible thumpers. And they, you know, he's a cool teacher and he talks to them at their level. And he's all on top of what's hip. And he is very open minded. I wouldn't necessarily say progressive, but he's not super regressive. And so to hear that he had an affair with a student and a troubled student at that makes them all kind of question their own reality and their own judgment of him. And they don't want to question their reality. They don't want to question their judgment of him or any man in their life. If they could sense that someone was trustworthy only to find out that they weren't, that makes them. It throws everything out of whack. The thing about Gabriel Ebert's character is in a lot of ways, he does feel more like a plot device than an actual character. In a show where there are a lot of characters like truly well developed characters, he feels. He does not feel real to me, especially because he kind of turns when the plane needs him to turn. For the first half of the play, he is doing absolutely everything right in terms of how a teacher should act in this modern age and knowing what the play is about, the themes it's about. I kind of kept waiting for some shoe to drop of something he would say or do that would give an indication of what might happen with him. Because the moment, you know, what the themes are in this play, and that there's a male teacher on stage with all these female students, and they're talking about sexual assault, and they're talking about inappropriate relationships. I just kept being like, when's it gonna happen? Like, something's gonna happen with this dude. He totally did something. He absolutely did something. And I'm waiting for it. Or, like. Or he's gonna do something, and what's it gonna be? And for the longest time, there's no inclination of anything, at least from what I could see until the big reveal with Sadie sinks Shelby. Right. Of, you know, her saying, you don't get to say this to me when we totally had an affair. And I'm paraphrasing. I'm also not saying the actual lines she says, because the lines she says a are very well written, and I don't want to spoil the cutting effect that they have if you go see the play. But then when that reveal happens, there are two scenes that kind of. Or it's. It's one scene. It's one scene with two different female characters that all of a sudden turn him into something that just never felt like it was there. One is when he meets up with Beth and he starts coercing her in what, you know, I think what the play thinks is subtle and nuanced, but it's very obvious to the audience, basically coercing her into believing him and being on his side. So he has an ally in the classroom for the future. Right. And it's very blatant, and it's not in a way of, like, desperation, but in a true form of manipulation in a way that does not hearken to anything he's done with her in the play before. Because they even have a scene alone together in the first half of the play, and there's really none of this in that scene. And then when Beth leaves and the guidance counselor, Ms. Gallagher, comes in. We learned earlier in the play that Ms. Gallagher, her older brother, was on the basketball team with Gabriel Ebert. With Gabriel Ebert when he was in high school. Gabriel Ebert was like the golden child back in high school and came back and became an amazing teacher and is, like, a pillar of the community and all this stuff. And the guidance counselor is like, oh, yes, I'm from here, too. I grew up here. You knew my brother. She goes, and I always had the biggest crush on you. And she's very flustered in front of him, and he's like, oh, that's sweet. That's sweet. That's sweet. And he's like, I don't remember much about you. She's like, Well, I was 12 and you were 18 at the time, or 19, and my brother always sort of kept me away from you. And at the time, you hear that and you're like, well, because she's his annoying younger sister who has this huge crush on his upperclassman teammate, doesn't want to be embarrassed. But then also, that's something that can kind of be played the opposite way. Maybe the brother senses something about Gabriel Ebert that he doesn't want his sister to be around. But this is not explored at all or even really hinted at in the first half. It's just, oh, we never saw each other because my brother always kept me away. And when everything sort of comes back around, when Gabriel Ebert comes back from his isolation and talks to Beth and says, you know, my wife says she believes me, but I know she doesn't. And things are really bad at home, and it's terrible timing because we're about to have this baby. That's when the guidance counselor comes back in and they talk and she reveals that she had friends who knew Gabriel Ebert back in the day, including one specific friend in college. And nothing is said out loud, but there's enough innuendo that something happened with her, with Ms. Gallagher's friend and Gabriel Ebert back in college. And it's a little. It's one of those things where I'm like, for a play that does really good work of navigating choppy waters and not really going too much for me, it's sort of one obvious red flag too much of making, like, wanting the audience to be known crystal clear, he's totally guilty. Even if he doesn't admit it, even if he and Sadie sink don't share a scene together and hash it out, the way he's talking to Beth, the. The history we are now learning from Ms. Gallagher, he's totally guilty because he's had stuff in the past. And it's a little. It's a little bit of an easy out for me because, I mean, I believe that it happened already. Sadie sinks, Shelby proves to be not a liar. She's very unwell mentally, but she's not a liar. And in fact, that is something that gave me. And when she's talking about her home life and sort of what she was going through at the time, and we learned sort of how she always was in high school before she took her sabbatical, that even though she was really great friends with Raelyn and Was, technically speaking, one of the popular girls. She was considered weird and, you know, she was very smart and was a reader, but sort of more of an outsider of the group and having a hard time at home. And I'm like, that's all we need to know. Because that's what predators do. They don't find, like he wouldn't find the Ivy, who's constantly surrounded by friends, who has self esteem, who has a good home life at that at the time, and goes in for manipulation and coercion and gaslighting. They. These, these teachers who are predators. Because I also want to say not every teacher is a predator. In fact, I would argue most of them aren't. But there are teachers who are absolutely predators. You can see so many goddamn true crime documentaries about them. There was a fucking scandal at Horace Mann years ago, right? It happens. It happens more often than you'd think. It doesn't make it the rule, but it happens. But what these teachers do, and not just teachers, but any predator, is they isolate. They find students who are in a vulnerable position, terrible time at home, not feeling included at school, something like that. And they separate them from everyone else. And they start getting them accustomed to being spoken to and touched and treated in a very different way from everyone else. You're so special. You're so smart, you're so mature for your age. None of these kids understand you, but I see you. Let's be friends. Oh, we're touching hands this way. That's what friends do. And then all of a sudden coming at them with this seduction of, this is so against the rules, and I shouldn't be doing this, but you're just so special, I can't help myself. You're this amazing individual and I can't hold myself back. What am I supposed to do? Makes this. Be honest. This child feel so much more confidence in themselves than they had before this relationship. But then what we see with Shelby is even with all of that happening, part of her knew that it was wrong and knew that it was toxic. She uses the words, I think gross or dirty and she takes it out on herself. And feeling so low about what, what's happening because she has this person who's building her up, but then also taking advantage of her. And so even though this person can maybe give you self esteem in drops and can give you insight into the world and give you all these tools for becoming a better adult, it also comes at the cost of manipulation and abuse. And that is what ultimately leads Shelby to, we find out, cheat with Raelyn's boyfriend because she needed to do something to kind of make her feel even worse than she already did. And then also kind of have this bit of a psychotic break because she couldn't talk to anybody about it. And when you have something that's building on your. On your conscience like that, eventually something in you snaps. That's all I need to know, that the fucker's guilty. Right? Adding more piling other innuendo from this guy's past that comes sort of out of nowhere. And having him sort of make a heel turn in the last third for me feels like an easy road to go down. And I only say this because, as I said, so much of the play deals with this in a far more nuanced and surprisingly hilarious way that I was a little disappointed in that turn for his character. That it kind of went that villainous so quickly and so easy in terms of writing. That's really my only big complaint. But I do think that the acting work on the show is so strong, and I think Donya Taymor's direction is really strong. It's really great ensemble work from her. There's a lot of transitional work that she does where the lighting sort of zeros in on a different girl for each transition as we sort of see how the events of the previous scene going into the next scene is affecting her. And it adds a lot of tension to the play. That's already. There's already tension in the play, but it adds to it for sure and makes you sort of wonder what's going to be happening in the next scene and what this girl is now carrying with her into it. Overall, again, really strong performances from the entire ensemble. This has been a really good year for plays like last year, and again, really strong ensemble work. I want to give a quick shout out to Finestrasa, I think I'm saying her name correctly, who plays Beth. That's the sort of type A student, the one who's best friends with Gabriel Ebert. I think that she. I mean, everyone has a really specific and lived intake on their character. I found that Finna was the most precise in her work and really, again, has really phenomenal material, but really nails it pretty much every step of the way. If I were to say there was a weak link, for me, it would probably be Sadie Sink as Shelby. And Sadie Sink is doing very good work. She actually really inhabits the emotional distress of Shelby throughout the entire show and has a great deal of stage presence and she works with her fellow actor as well. It's More that I know that she has been on stage as a child. I don't think she's been on stage in a long time. I think she's really just been doing film and TV for the last couple of years and she needs a little more time to kind of get her stage instrument working again. Just physically, there's a lot of, there's a lot of physicality with Sadie's performance that I just think could be finessed by more experience on stage in a way that all the other performers, all the other actors in the show are really in command of their body and how they present it on stage. There's a bit of Sadie where, and you could argue this is Shelby sort of being on the edge all the time. But I don't really think it's that there's just really. There's certain physical movements that just come from not not having had to fill a space as large as say, like the booth theater. When you're used to having to just fill a singular frame for like a six month shoot, right, there's just certain things where you, you are. Your brain is unaccustomed to having to fill the space that way for so long. So it's just about getting that machinery up and running again. Because everything else she's doing is really strong. And when I say she's probably the weakest link, she isn't weak. It's just in a cast where I feel like everyone is giving like a 9 or 10 out of 10 performance, I feel like Sadie's giving an 8 out of 10, which is no hardship by any means. It's just for me it was a little noticeable, that's all. But I'm sure as the run continues, because I think they go through July as the run continues, I'm sure she'll just get better and better as she gets more comfortable with her body and gets more comfortable on stage. Again, I would like to see it again. I'd like to maybe see this later in the run and see how she does and also look for maybe earlier signs towards the reveal in the first half with Gabriel Ebert because again, from what I saw and my memory, I didn't get a lot of that. It felt more like a very extreme pivot. But maybe on a second viewing I'll see more of that and I'll give that a shot. That's it for John Proctor. In regards to Tony chances, I do think that if it's eligible for play, which it should be, even though it's been sort of kicking around for the last seven years. This is, I believe it's New York premiere because it was workshopped at a couple of colleges in 2018 and then I think it premiered in 2022 in D.C. and then last year in Boston at the Huntington. I don't think it's been performed in New York City yet. So I don't think it should fall under the classics rule or the bullshit Eureka Day decision. So I believe it'll be eligible for play, which I think it will be nominated for. I absolutely can see Donya Taymor getting nominated. I think lighting and scenic design could be nominated. It's very subtle work with the lighting, I would say outside of the scene transitions, but it does work very nicely. And I think the set is intricate and detailed. It's similar to the Eureka Day set where, I mean, not literally, but they are both classrooms of just sort of. The detail work is fantastic. In terms of performances, it's a little hard. It's really an ensemble piece. I don't see Sadie Sink being considered lead. She doesn't show up for about 30 minutes into the play. And then once she shows up, she has a lot of time off stage as well. She is, her character is the catalyst. She's the inciting incident that gets everything, the ball really rolling with everything. But she does. She didn't feel like a lead to me. No one really felt like a lead. Honestly. If anyone could be the lead, it would be Finn Estrasza or Finestrasza as Beth. But I don't think so. And I would love her to actually be nominated for featured actress Finna. I wouldn't be mad about most of them. I also really liked Amalia Yu as Raelyn. Again. I thought the whole company was really great, but Finn and Amalia were probably the two biggest stands out for me. And yeah, that's it. So look for John Proctor as the villain during Tony season. I'm sure it'll do quite nicely. And this is why we go into every show with an open mind at arm's length. Because even if it doesn't sound like your cup of tea, even if you've heard negative or positive things about it, you can go in and have your mind be changed. Right. And I was really impressed with this show. Very much so. So that's it. Yeah. Thank you so much for listening, guys. If you like the podcast, make sure to give us a nice 5 star rating or review. You can follow me on Instagram attcoplek. Usual spelling. You can join the Broadway Breakdown Discord Channel where we are continuing with Tony Ward predictions. You can also write in comments and questions for me on the podcast, especially when we start doing reactions to the Tony nominations and then questions you might have when we cover shows in our deep dives after Tony. Yeah, that's about it for now. So to close us out, we don't really have any musical Broadway divas mentioned in this week's episode, and Taylor Swift do not count, despite what Raelyn says or loves. But I'm thinking, you know what? Because Gabriel Ebert won his Tony Award for Matilda, I am going to. And because Finastrasa was a former Matilda, we're gonna close out with one of the Matildas in Matilda. Whether that's London, Broadway or the movie soundtrack, I couldn't tell you. But we're gonna close out with one of those Matildas and call it a lovely day. So thank you so much for listening, guys, and we will catch you later. Take it away, Matilda. Bye. You're stuck in your story and once it gets out you don't have to cry, you don't have to Cause if you're little you can do a lot. You mustn't let a little thing like little stop you. If you sit around and let them get on top, you won't change a thing. Just because you find that life's not fair, it doesn't mean that you just have to grin and fare it. If you always take it on the chin and wear it, you might as well be saying your thing.