"Purpose" - by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins - Huntington Theatre Company (Boston, MA.) - REVIEW
(Cover Photo: The CAST of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' "PURPOSE" presented by Huntington Theatre Company at the Wimberly Theatre/Calderwood, 527 Tremont Street, Boston, MA. through October 11, 2026. Photo Credit: Marc J. Franklin)
By Kevin T. Baldwin
METRMAG Reviewer
# 774-242-6724
"Or what if purpose is simply... to commit to stepping, to taking the path, to seeing what it contains for you and... finding God there.”
- ("Naz") / Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
Huntington Theatre Company
Presents Branden Jacobs-Jenkins'
"PURPOSE"
WINNER Tony Award for Best Play!
WINNER 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Drama!
Written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
Directed by Josiah Davis
Cast Includes: Omari K. Chancellor* as “Nazareth Jasper,” Ugo Chukwu* as “Solomon 'Junior' Jasper,” Phyllis Yvonne Stickney* as “Claudine Jasper,” Ezra Knight* as “Solomon Jasper,” Kalyne Ashley Coleman* as “Aziza Houston,” MarHadoo Effeh* as “Morgan Jasper.”
Understudies: Omar Robinson* (Nazareth Jasper/Solomon "Junior" Jasper); Chris Everett (Claudine Jasper/Morgan Jasper); Joshua Wolf Coleman* (Solomon Jasper); Kiera Prusmack* (Aziza Houston).
Additional Creative Team:
Assistant Director - Tasia A. Jones; Production Assistant - Athéna-Genesis Baptiste; Northeastern Co-Op Production Assistant - Roxanne Buckellew; Scenic Design - Se Hyun Oh; Wig, Hair and Makeup Design - J. Jared Janas, Cassie Williams; Costume Design - Celeste Jennings; Dramaturg - Ashley M. Thomas; Lighting Design - Marika Kent; Casting - Danica Rodriguez; Sound Design and Original Music - Kathy Ruvuna; Local Casting – Brett Duffy; Production Stage Manager - Ashley Pitchford*; Stage Manager - Ross Gray*; Producing Director - Kevin Schlagle; Voice and Text Coach - Kim James Bey; Intimacy Consultant - Dr. Ayshia Mackie-Stephenson; Fight Consultant - Omar Robinson; Emerging Artist Observer - LaTasha Snider; Production Management Associate - Nick Robinette; Carpenters - Robbie Lewis, Shawn Lindaberry, Jay Grannis, Nick Robinette, Tess Evans-Shell; Scenic Artists - Sarah Busick, Guthrie Morgan, Lily Hourin; Props Run Swing - Nate Kelleher; Costume Design Assistants - Kiara Escalera, Jaimy Escobedo; First Costumer - Hanh Rioux; Wardrobe Swing - Katherine Mehler; Wig Run - Susie Moncousky; Wig Swing - Kat Shanahan; Lighting Programmer - Robbie Kaylor; Lighting Design Assistant - Spencer Swetlow; Electricians - Colin Cleary, Dean Covert, Makenna Harnden, Helen Kuhar, Isaac Roussak; A2 - Madonna McGuire; ASL Interpretation and Audio Description Season Coordinator - Think Outside the Vox; Director of Artistic Sign Language - Kellynette Gomez; ASL Interpreters - Christopher Robinson, Julia Barnes; Audio Description Consultant and Blind/Low Vision Expert - Mikey Rose; In-Show Audio Describer - Melissa A. Watkins; Pre-Show Audio Describer - Teddy Hendricks; Open Captioning - c2 Inc.; Photographer (family portrait) - Nile Hawver/Nile Scott Studios.
*Members of Actors' Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States
Performances:
September 10, 2026 through October 11, 2026
(Contact Box Office for Exact Times)
Wimberly Theatre/Calderwood, 527 Tremont Street, Boston, MA. 02116
TICKETS:
Available online at huntingtontheatre.org, by phone at 617-266-0800 or in person at THE HUNTINGTON THEATRE, 264 Huntington Avenue, Boston.
BUY TICKETS
COVID 19 PROTOCOLS
Contact Venue for Most Updated COVID-19 Safety Protocols and Information.
(Warning: The following review contains spoilers)
Huntington Theatre Company kicks off its 2026-2027 season with the extraordinary play "PURPOSE," centered on a family with members trying to either escape or embrace that which defines them.
Written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, "PURPOSE" focuses on the conflicts that arise as an entire family’s legacy is seemingly risked by one member seeking out his own true unique and individual destiny.
Following an aging Civil Rights icon and his children, "PURPOSE" illuminates a younger generation seeking to forge their own paths while impeded by their parent’s historic achievements.
How are succeeding generations supposed to find themselves while handling the immense weight of parental expectations, Civil Rights royalty and, in some cases here, personal hypocrisy?
In the two-act drama, we watch as one such child pushes back against his father’s rigid and seemingly “encoded” vision of life, with the son insisting that one’s true "PURPOSE" cannot be forced upon them - it must come organically.
Meanwhile the father, of course, doesn’t know what the hell his son is talking about.
"PURPOSE" debuted in Chicago in 2023 (directed by Phylicia Rashad with associate director Tyrone Phillips) before transferring to Broadway for the 2024–25 season, receiving mostly positive reviews.
In 2025, "PURPOSE" won top honors from the American Theatre Critics Association, Drama Desk Awards, New York Drama Critics' Circle and the Tony Award for Best Play, and the play would also be recipient of the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Five of the six actors in the Broadway cast would also receive Tony Award nominations.
With the Huntington Theatre production, proficiently staged by Josiah Davis, it is easy to understand why the play received such accolades as it is simply a magnificent piece of writing by Jacobs-Jenkins, reminding us all of what theatre is supposed to be.
The characters are all rich with the actors given many powerful moments to shine and with a multitude of captivating monologues.
The dialogue flows so fluidly with great care and ease – there is a familiarity, as well, that permeates so strongly that occasionally one might forget we are watching a play, which is the point.
There are many dialogue-punctuated moments where special effects are used across the gorgeous multi-level stage that keep our attention focused and transfixed exactly where it needs to be.
The fact that "PURPOSE" is so good comes as a bit of a shock, too, as initially the story itself seems to start off a little “sitcom-my” in premise - but the material gradually escalates and elevates far beyond that first impression.
While it also may seem to devolve into some grim areas at times, there is so much humor balancing out the drama that we soon find ourselves completely invested in the outcome of this family’s ruinous reunion.
Trust me, when this show is funny, it is absolutely manic - and, when it is poignant, again trust me, it is equally manic.
(Photo: Ugo Chukwu as "Solomon 'Junior' Jasper" with Omari K Chancellor as "Nazareth Jasper" in a scene from Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' "PURPOSE" presented by Huntington Theatre Company at the Wimberly Theatre/Calderwood, 527 Tremont Street, Boston, MA. through October 11, 2026. Photo Credit: Marc J. Franklin)
As "PURPOSE" begins, we meet Chicago’s Jasper family, a prominent African-American family.
The Jaspers are reuniting for two unusual circumstances happening simultaneously – a birthday for one member coinciding with the prison release of another.
The family patriarch is Solomon “Sonny” Jasper (Ezra Knight), a retired spiritual leader and prominent activist from the Civil Rights Movement.
Knight is riveting as inflexible Sonny, the supposed “moral epicenter” of the Jasper family which is about to experience a seismic shift.
Sonny has taken to beekeeping, a distraction from his having to maintain the mantle of his monumental legacy along with the suffocating expectations of his participation in the Civil Rights Movement.
Sonny admires the bees’ need for order, reflecting his own need…nay, longing…for similar order.
Sonny’s pious nature results in his loudly calling out his family member's varied weaknesses – their hypocrisies, deceptions and lies…all while avoiding his own weaknesses, a failing of moral character and deceit.
Sonny’s wife Claudine (Phyllis Yvonne Stickney) is the family’s moralistic matriarch (and legal counsel).
Stickney as Claudine is compelling as the fiercely controlling strategic guardian of the family's public image, seeking to preserve and curate the Jasper legacy at all costs.
(Photo: Omari K Chancellor as "Nazareth Jasper" with MarHadoo Effeh as “Morgan Jasper” in a scene from Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' "PURPOSE" presented by Huntington Theatre Company at the Wimberly Theatre/Calderwood, 527 Tremont Street, Boston, MA. through October 11, 2026. Photo Credit: Marc J. Franklin)
As for their children, our guide and narrator for the play is their younger son, Nazareth "Naz" (Omari K. Chancellor), a nature photographer, just returned from an assignment in the Canadian wilderness.
From the moment the show begins, Chancellor maintains our focus by taking us into each “photographic still” - a fourth-wall moment before returning into the story himself - a simply brilliant marriage of writing to an actor’s execution.
As the former divinity school student-turned-nature photographer, Chancellor dominates much of the story as Naz, who represents a complete departure from his father’s iconic Civil Rights legacy.
In fact, Naz’s genial and gentle demeanor is so outside that of the rest of his “Alpha” family that he soon becomes both potential ally and adversary just by his presence.
Yet, we also witness how Naz’s thoughtful advice positions him with the quiet wisdom similar to a secular preacher…possibly showing that he is not so different than his spiritual leader father after all.
Naz’s older brother Solomon "Junior" (Ugo Chukwu) is a state senator who was imprisoned for embezzlement, recently diagnosed as bipolar.
As Junior, Chukwu gives a dynamic, multi-layered portrayal of the disgraced political heir who desperately wants Sonny’s love and approval and gets neither.
In fact, the malice shown by Sonny for Junior forces the family to face up to years of pretense and moral collapse under the sheer weight of idealistic generational expectations.
(Photo: Ezra Knight as “Solomon Jasper” with Omari K Chancellor as "Nazareth Jasper" in a scene from Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' "PURPOSE" presented by Huntington Theatre Company at the Wimberly Theatre/Calderwood, 527 Tremont Street, Boston, MA. through October 11, 2026. Photo Credit: Marc J. Franklin)
Also involved in Junior's disgrace is his wife Morgan (MarHadoo Effeh), who, upon Junior’s release is now herself about to serve time for tax fraud.
Effeh shows us Morgan as a grounded woman who offers an unvarnished, blistering view of the family's falseness through several expertly delivered exchanges and monologues.
Finally, we also are introduced to Aziza (Kalyne Ashley Coleman), quite possibly a favorite character in the show thanks to Coleman’s absorbing performance.
Aziza is a social worker and Naz' lesbian friend from Harlem, whose unexpected arrival and personal revelations disrupt the reunion, thus forcing the Jaspers to confront many deep-seated secrets.
As well conveyed by Coleman’s performance, Aziza’s perspective highlights how dangerous it can sometimes be to meet one’s heroes.
Like the pitfalls of beekeeping, over fascination with the subjects might just get somebody “stung” as a result.
For what starts off as a rift soon becomes a great chasm between the Jasper family's pristine public image and their unpleasant private reality.
(Photo: The CAST of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' "PURPOSE" presented by Huntington Theatre Company at the Wimberly Theatre/Calderwood, 527 Tremont Street, Boston, MA. through October 11, 2026. Photo Credit: Marc J. Franklin)
Huntington Theatre Company's production of "PURPOSE" continues at the Calderwood Pavilion in Boston until October 11th, 2026 and it is one honey of a show, filled to the brim with meaningful moments and incredible performances.
Coming up next at the Huntington Theatre Company at Huntington Avenue will be Harper Lee's “TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD” which runs from October 8th until November 8th, 2026.
For tickets and more information, contact Huntington Theatre Company online at huntingtontheatre.org, by phone at # 617-266-0800 or in person at Huntington Theatre Company, 264 Huntington Avenue, Boston.
BUY TICKETS
Approximately two hours, 45 minutes with one intermission.
Kevin T. Baldwin is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA)
@MetrmagReviews
@Theatre_Critics
ABOUT THE SHOW
WINNER of the Tony Award for Best Play!
WINNER of the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Drama!
A smash hit on Broadway, "PURPOSE" is the explosive and wildly entertaining new play from Tony-winner Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, diving headlong into the life of a prominent and influential political dynasty.
Encircled by civil rights leaders, pastors, and congressmen for decades, the Jasper family is a foundational pillar of Black American society.
That is, until their youngest son returns home with an unexpected dinner guest, and their carefully curated existence begins to fracture.
Don’t miss this searing and hilarious exploration of faith, class, ambition, and heritage — what The Washington Post called “a feast of jaw-dropping tea and riveting food for thought.”
ABOUT THE HUNTINGTON THEATRE COMPANY
THE HUNTINGTON THEATRE COMPANY is Boston’s leading professional theatre and one of the region’s premier cultural assets since its founding in 1982. Recipient of the 2013 Regional Theatre Tony Award, THE HUNTINGTON brings together superb local and national talent and produces a mix of groundbreaking new works and classics made current to create award-winning productions. THE HUNTINGTON runs nationally renowned programs in education and new play development and serves the local theatre community through its operation of the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA. THE HUNTINGTON has long been an anchor cultural institution of Huntington Avenue, the Avenue of the Arts, and will remain so on a permanent basis with plans to convert the Huntington Avenue Theatre into a first-rate, modern venue with expanded services to audiences, artists, and the community. THE HUNTINGTON cultivates, celebrates, and champions theatre as an art form.
