Review of Purpose on Broadway

In March 2025, which is when this blog post will also go live, I had the opportunity to go up to the city for work. The theater I work at, New Perspectives, was putting on a full length play at the Culture Lab in New York City, so I planned to go up for a week while I did work.

During that time, I packed my schedule at night with theatrical productions. I was stalking TDF every single day to see what kind of show I could get tickets for, and I knew I wanted to see Purpose when I was in town. I had a feeling it would show up on TDF, and it did pop up there for $55 with fees.

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is one of those playwrights who work I absolutely adore. I had bought a ticket for Appropriate when it was at the Hayes, but had it cancelled due to the cast illness the day I was going to see it. I ended up buying another ticket when it transferred theaters, and although I had some complaints about the mezzanine back row seats in that theater (ushers talking and people moving about in general), the show was fantastic.

So when I heard about Purpose, I knew I wanted to see that immediately too, which is why I was stalking TDF so much. I’ve been to the Hayes Theater so many times and even volunteered there (it’s my most visited Broadway space), so trust me most seats in this house are incredibly good when it comes to views. If you’re under 30, they usually have $30 tickets, but this isn’t a Second Stage show.

For my TDF ticket, I was giving Row H in the orchestra, seat 112. This is on the aisle on the lefthand side of the audience. This was absolutely perfect when it came to views. It was close but not too close, and I could see everything except some people’s faces during the dinner scene—but that’s to be expected when you see how the dinner table is circular, and the main character’s back is to the audience.

Let’s get into the review! I don’t want to ramble too much, as I know introductions can get quite long.

The photographer son of a prominent Black family finds himself confronting everything and anything about his family when he brings his female friend home.

The main character in this play is Naz (full name: Nazareth), a nature photographer who’s just met up with his friend Aziza in Niagara Falls. They used to be neighbors in Harlem during the pandemic, and now Aziza is looking for a donor so she can have a child. We learn the reasons why for this later in the play, but lots of drama to come before then.

Anyways, Naz comes home and introduces us to his family. His brother Solomon Junior (known just as junior) is a Senator who went to jail for stealing taxpayer dollars, and his wife Morgan, who comes from a humble background, is going to jail in a week to serve her time for her husband’s actions.

The play takes place in a single day, as Naz comes home, explains his strained relationship with his parents, then Aziza is brought into the fold because no one expects Naz to have a lady friend. As the snow gets thicker outside, the tension inside of the house starts to explode when family secrets and trauma come to light, showing how messed up this family has become.

Naz and Junior are the kids of a prominent civil rights reverend. The set design reflects this, as it’s pictures of him and the other guys (like MLK) that he marched with in this massive house. Those who saw Appropriate are going to find this set design kind of similar, but very distinguished in its own way.

Major complications involving the arrangement between Naz and Aziza are going to come up later in the play, especially when Aziza goes to return Naz’s charger inside his house and realizes who exactly his parents are. She’s all bright eyed and bushy tailed once she realizes who they are, but as we see throughout the course of the play, there’s an inherent danger and tragedy to realizing who people really are, Aziza included.

The format of the play itself happens to be this: live scenes are happening in the moment, showing us the plot and characters, while other moments happen as live commentary and monologues from Nazareth. If you’re not into telling when it comes to your mode of consuming storytelling, you’re going to hate how Nazareth narrates.

Personally, I was fine with it. It added some perfectly comedic moments to a loaded story. I found it interesting how audience members would react to this play, especially when it came to the serious moments. Because the comedy is so solid in the beginning (I started crying I was laughing so hard), some of the more serious moments people were laughing at that I didn’t think were funny at all.

On a different note, every actor in this play is absolutely fantastic in their roles, but the shoutouts for me go to Jon Michael Hill (who plays Nazareth) and Kara Young (who plays Aziza). I feel like every character had their moment and time to shine, but these two really are some of the ones I think have a solid shot of landing a Tony Award.

Overall Thoughts

As I mentioned before, I think Jacobs-Jenkins is such a good playwright, and Purpose shows how good he is at making something that’s both hilarious and poignant. There are some real moments in here that make you step back and think about what led everyone to this point in time and how we got to the boiling point.

We also see how every character in this play is very flawed, and even in the ending. No one is truly dubbed the right person in what’s happening, and even what we think we know can easily get upended and twisted on us.

I say go see this one before it closes. I’m so glad I got a TDF ticket, as I could not afford a ticket regularly, but if I had the money I would sprint to this show and purchase a regular price ticket. It’s definitely in Tony territory, that’s for sure.

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