At a recent theater talkback, someone in the audience asked the assembled actors an existential question. When the world seems bleak, how do you go on?
“What we do for a living is a fight against that,” one actor said. The very act of telling stories onstage is a rebuff to tyranny, rooted in treating each other with respect, he said. “That’s all this art form is.”
Kenneth (James Carrington) drinks mai tais with Bert (Terry Bell), served by a Wally’s waiter (Lachrisa Grandbrry) in “Primary Trust.”
“Primary Trust,” Eboni Booth’s intimate, Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy, has attracted theater companies around the country because of this core idea: a turning toward, rather than turning away from, someone who is struggling.
Staged in the Overture Center Playhouse by Forward Theater through Sept. 21, “Primary Trust” makes a case for kindness on the most intimate scale.
Kenneth, played by James Carrington, is a 38-year-old bookstore clerk with a childlike innocence and a meticulous routine. Every day in his small town, Kenneth goes to work, drinks mai tais at Wally’s with his friend Bert, and goes home.
Kenneth (James Carrington) drinks mai tais with Bert (Terry Bell) in “Primary Trust.”
In this way, he stays in control. Kenneth is safe. He is also deeply lonely.
Bert (Terry Bell), we quickly learn, is imaginary, a human-size coping mechanism Kenneth has cultivated for 28 years. When the bookstore closes, Bert cheerleads Kenneth through his interview at a bank and helps him memorize the employee handbook. (Can the other characters see Kenneth talking with Bert? It’s not always clear.)
As Kenneth narrates his own story, “Primary Trust” requires careful balance of Kenneth’s interior life with that of the people around him, and director Mikael Burke doesn’t always find it. Some pacing seems tentative, and a chiming bell, indicated in the script to show the passage of time, can feel jangling and intrusive.
Kenneth (James Carrington) works at a bookstore owned by Clay (Sam D. White) in Forward Theater’s “Primary Trust.”
More challenging is Carrington’s Kenneth. Orphaned young, this character shields himself from the outside world — he’s afraid to be known. Other (real) characters approach Kenneth as though he’s awkward and reserved, but Carrington isn’t. His nerves don’t show.
This geniality makes Kenneth’s isolation feel like a coincidence, rather than a deliberate locking away of his heart. His angry outburst, late in the play, feels out of the blue and out of character.
Still, “Primary Trust” has heart, embodied most vividly by Lachrisa Grandberry. Grandberry plays all of the servers at “New York’s oldest tiki hut,” including Corrina, whom Kenneth tentatively befriends.
Corinna (Lachrisa Grandberry) and Kenneth (James Carrington) share martinis at a fancy French place in “Primary Trust,” produced by Forward Theater. Karen Brown-Larimore designed the costumes.
She’s a joy to watch, with a warm stage presence and absolute commitment to every “Welcome to Wally’s!” bit. Veteran performer Sam D. White rounds out the cast as Kenneth’s various bosses, bringing a paternal aspect to Clay, his manager at the bank.
Chris Dunham designed the insular, pre-smartphone world of Cranberry, New York, to resemble a pop-up storybook, while lighting designer Maaz Ahmed uses quick spotlights to alternate between Kenneth’s mind and the rest of the world. Sound designer Joe Cerqua wrote folklike interludes for scene changes, interspersed with synth-pop versions of “The Girl From Ipanema” and “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” at the tiki hut.
Kenneth (James Carrington) and Corinna (Lachrisa Grandberry) make a connection in “Primary Trust,” produced by Forward Theater and directed by Mikael Burke. Chris Dunham designed the set.
“Primary Trust” makes a gentle, hopeful start to Forward’s 17th season. As Kenneth’s world expands he’s met with kindness and patience, even when it’s unearned. “I get angry too, sometimes,” Corrina says. “And sad.”
That steady belief in friendship feels like a salve for the soul. This, Booth suggests, is how we go on.
Lindsay Christians is the food and culture editor at the Cap Times. She earned a master’s degree in theater research from UW-Madison and has been a member of the American Theatre Critics/Journalists Association since 2007.
Email story ideas and tips to Lindsay at [email protected].
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