Ensemble Theatre scored an impressive coup de theatre in securing the rights to Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ 2025 Pulitzer and Tony Award-winner Purpose for the opening production of its 50th season. Only a few other theaters in the U.S. have been granted the permission so soon after the Broadway premiere.
It’s quite a play – epic family drama like O’Neill, suffused with American black history from the ‘60s, a rollicking comedy, an emotional drama just this close to tragedy, and, because of the detailed character portraits, an audience favorite. There are numerous sympathetic “ahhs” during the show, the loudest at the close.
In present day Chicago, the renowned Jasper family gathers for a dual celebration: a birthday party for matriarch Claudine (Rachel Hemphill Dickson, a lion in winter) and eldest son Junior (Larry S. White II), a disgraced former state senator convicted of embezzlement and mail fraud, recently released from prison. Junior’s wife Morgan (Callina Anderson, whom last we saw nude in Rec Room’s Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune) stays cocooned in her room and refuses to eat with the family. She had been coerced to sign false tax documents and is about to enter prison. She is not happy. The youngest son Nazareth (Kory LaQuess Pullam as empathetic narrator), the “weird one,” as Mom says in offhanded put down, arrives with his lesbian “friend” and potential sperm recipient Aziza (a warm and quirky Ashlyn Evans).
None of this sits well with grand patriarch Solomon Jasper (the galvanic Jason E. Carmichael), the famous civil rights activist and preacher. He is disgraced by his sons who have not lived up to his famed legacy. Naz was supposed to continue his divinity studies but dropped out to be a nature photographer. “I like being alone,” he states to no one’s agreement. And Junior, perhaps on the verge of a nervous breakdown, is a mess, wanting to please his stubborn father but always failing. Neither of his sons have pleased him, and he constantly browbeats and denigrates them. Naturally, we will discover later that Solomon has feet of clay and the marble pillar he has built for himself has been constructed on sand.
There’s much exposition to get through, but Jacobs-Jenkins keeps us thoroughly entertained by his wicked satire of a family which seems suspiciously like the Reverend Jesse Jacksons of Chicago. But the play is long, and Act II pales after the witty and scathing detail in the first act, which ends with a dinner scene from hell, which is delectable in how it quickly devolves into insinuations and utter embarrassment. Later, themes will repeat as characters plow through the same territory, even though augmented with surprising, buried family secrets. Don’t listen to me, the play’s a multiple prize-winner. But it’s still too long.
Yet we keep watching, because the characters, their development, and internal backbiting is so damned intriguing. This is probably because our narrator Naz speaks to us directly. Using shutter clicks and a pin spot, he stops the action with tiny internal monologues or just a funny line and becomes our witness to these larger-than-life personalities. We watch the play through him, and Pullam is so adorable in his befuddlement at his dysfunctional family ties that we root for him no matter what. He will see us through the play’s dry spells.
The Ensemble’s ensemble cast couldn’t be better under Eileen Morris’ whiplash direction (2026 Houston Theater Awards’ Best Director for her exceptional work on Alley’s Fences and Ensemble’s The Bluest Eye). Carmichael roars with terrifying bluster and fiery passion as the patriarch, and his closing monologue about his glory days of the Movement while he climbs the staircase as if rising to Heaven is mesmerizing. He has lost his purpose, it has passed him by decades ago, and where else can he direct his impotence but at his family? His new passion is beekeeping, but that will soon be ruined by Junior in a failed attempt to be helpful.
Hemphill is chilling in a different way. She’s cunningly passive aggressive, all honey while smothering and manipulative. She’s smooth like ancient Rome’s wicked Agripinna. You can’t help but feel sorry for White’s sad sack Junior as he goes slowly out of control, losing his father’s acceptance. Evans is a revelation as clear-eyed Aziza, who is dazzled at first by the family’s fabled history but then sadly witnesses the rot that lies beneath. Anderson, as frustrated Morgan, desperately holds her family together by a blackmail plot – a tell-all book about the Jaspers – and those bottles of mysterious pills. What kind are they, and what’s she going to do with them?
The only flaw in Joyce Milford’s set design, plastered with African statues, Kente cloth, and a prominent portrait of Martin Luther King, is that no self-respecting upper-middle class family would ever turn a piano with its back facing the living room. Turn it around or place it at an angle so we can see the keyboard.
Although the theme is thick with black history, Jacobs-Jenkins’ comedy/drama could take place anywhere. A family’s legacy and what happens to those within it who can’t find their way in the world is universal. The journey’s both wickedly sad and wickedly funny.Purpose continues through October 11 at. 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays, and 10 a.m. certain Wednesdays at Ensemble Theatre, 3535 Main. For more information, call 713-520-0055 or visit ensemblehouston.com. $45-$85
