"Primary Trust" - by Eboni Booth - SpeakEasy Stage Company (Boston, MA.) - REVIEW
(Cover Photo: David J. Castillo in a scene from Eboni Booth's "PRIMARY TRUST" now playing at SpeakEasy Stage Company in Boston, MA. until October 11, 2025. Photo credit Benjamin Rose Photography)
By Kevin T. Baldwin
METRMAG Reviewer
# 774-242-6724
“Not that I’m much of a religious person. I don’t really believe in God or heaven or hell, but I do believe in friends, and Bert is the best friend around.”
- (“Kenneth”) / Eboni Booth
SpeakEasy Stage Company
Presents Eboni Booth's
"PRIMARY TRUST"
Written by Eboni Booth
Directed by Dawn M. Simmons
Cast Includes: David J. Castillo*, Arthur Gomez*, Janelle Grace*, Luis Negrón*
Additional Creative Team:
Production Stage Manager - Kendyl Trott; Lighting Designer - Karen Perlow; Props Coordinator - Jason Ries; Assistant Stage Manager - Ross Gray; Costume Designer - Chelsea Kerl; Scenic Designer - Shelley Barish; Sound Designer - Anna Drummond.
* Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States
Performances:
September 12, 2025 through October 11, 2025
(Contact Box Office for Exact Times)
Roberts Studio Theatre, Calderwood / BCA, 527 Tremont Street, Boston, MA. 02116
TICKETS:
Contact the Box Office # 617-933-8600 or visit www.speakeasystage.com
BUY TICKETS
COVID 19 PROTOCOLS
Contact Venue for Most Updated COVID-19 Safety Protocols and Information.
(Warning: The following review may contain spoilers)
SpeakEasy Stage Company opens their 35th season with "PRIMARY TRUST" - an accounting of one man’s complex journey navigating through life with a traveling companion only he can see.
The poignant 2024 Pulitzer Prize-winning one-act play from Eboni Booth is a charming essay on one man’s difficulties interacting with others after experiencing a horrendous tragedy as a child.
Booth’s short but sweet story features a marvelous four-person cast that is adeptly directed by Dawn M. Simmons for SpeakEasy Stage.
The "PRIMARY TRUST" SpeakEasy set is kept intentionally minimal but is extremely effective, allowing for the multiple transitions that take place over the course of the play’s 90 minutes.
Many of those transitions are handled through cleverly pinpointed lighting and sound cues.
(Photo: David J. Castillo in a scene from Eboni Booth's "PRIMARY TRUST" now playing at SpeakEasy Stage Company in Boston, MA. until October 11, 2025. Photo credit Benjamin Rose Photography)
In "PRIMARY TRUST" we meet Kenneth (David J. Castillo) whose beloved mother unexpectedly passed away when he was very young, only 10-years-old, leaving him withdrawn from life.
This gut-wrenching loss has left Kenneth in a permanently nervous, anxious emotional state deepened by a serious inability to engage in any kind of social interaction.
Further compounding the above for Kenneth is being a Black man living in a predominantly white town.
So, Kenneth has invested his own "PRIMARY TRUST" into his imaginary Black friend, Bert (Arthur Gomez), who (spoiler alert) is an apparition of a man who was important to Kenneth when his mother passed.
(Photo: David J. Castillo and Janelle Grace in a scene from Eboni Booth's "PRIMARY TRUST" now playing at SpeakEasy Stage Company in Boston, MA. until October 11, 2025. Photo credit Benjamin Rose Photography)
A stellar performance at SpeakEasy Stage Company is given by Castillo, who sympathetically pivots his character effortlessly when Kenneth is forced into a new career after spending 20 years intentionally hiding away from the world by working in a bookstore.
Gomez is splendid as Bert who serves as a kind of moral and social guide for Kenneth, helping Kenneth to cope with the multiple changes about to be forced upon him when the bookstore owner, Clay (as played by Luis Negrón, serving in multiple roles) advises Kenneth he is selling the store, putting Kenneth out of the only job he has known.
(Photo: Arthur Gomez and David J. Castillo in a scene from Eboni Booth's "PRIMARY TRUST" now playing at SpeakEasy Stage Company in Boston, MA. until October 11, 2025. Photo credit Benjamin Rose Photography)
Kenneth spends most of his evenings at a local Tiki bar, sipping Mai tais, ordered for two – one for him and one for his “drinking buddy”…Bert.
Kenneth is advised by Tiki bar waitress Corrina (played by Janelle Grace, also serving in multiple roles) that a local bank is hiring and recommends he submit an employment application to "PRIMARY TRUST."
After Kenneth is interviewed by Sam (Negrón), Kenneth is hired and although he is completely sure and petrified he will fail at this new job, no one is more surprised than he when he begins to actually succeed at the bank as a new teller.
Costuming for "PRIMARY TRUST" is in keeping with the characters’ respective and occasionally varied personalities, as in the case with Negrón and Grace appearing as their multiple characters throughout the show.
Grace is both versatile and hilarious as the varied wait staff at the Tiki bar and as the multiple “unique” customers Kenneth must interact with at the bank.
(Photo: David J. Castillo and Luis Negrón in a scene from Eboni Booth's "PRIMARY TRUST" now playing at SpeakEasy Stage Company in Boston, MA. until October 11, 2025. Photo credit Benjamin Rose Photography)
Another strength to the Booth script is that it never becomes overly maudlin or wallowing in the depths of despair, with Kenneth crashing and burning, meeting with failure upon failure and coming across like the world's ultimate sad sack loser - although it easily could have gone that route.
Instead, though, and thankfully, it is Castillo’s compassionate, emotionally tuned-in performance as Kenneth that moves us and keeps us invested in what happens to Kenneth as life changes are aggressively forced upon him and we find ourselves rooting for Kenneth to succeed.
"PRIMARY TRUST" runs through October 11th, 2025 in Boston at the SpeakEasy Stage, so make sure to catch this charming little show before it ultimately withdraws from the Boston area.
Coming up next at SpeakEasy will be “LIZARD BOY: A NEW MUSICAL” with Book, Music and Lyrics by Justin Huertas, beginning October 24th and running through November 22nd, 2025.
Approximately 90 minutes with no intermission.
Kevin T. Baldwin is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA)
@MetrmagReviews
@Theatre_Critics
ABOUT THE SHOW
In Eboni Booth's "PRIMARY TRUST" - Kenneth works at a bookstore and spends his evenings at the local tiki bar.
But when he’s suddenly laid off, his carefully ordered world starts to shift—pushing him into unexpected friendships, unlikely courage, and a life he never imagined.
Touching, funny, and quietly profound, this Pulitzer Prize-winning play explores how even the smallest acts of kindness can shift a life—and maybe even save one.
“It will restore your faith in theatre’s elemental storytelling powers.” – The Observer
ABOUT SPEAKEASY STAGE COMPANY
SPEAKEASY STAGE COMPANY is a non-profit theatre company located in the South End of Boston and is led by award-winning Producing Artistic Director Paul Daigneault. SPEAKEASY STAGE COMPANY was named the Pavilion Resident Theater for the Boston Center for the Arts in 2007 and produces 28 weeks of new plays and musicals each season at the Nancy and Ed Roberts Studio Theater in the Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts.
