Chicago Tribune - Highly Recommended
"...Exaggeration is a legitimate theatrical tool, and therein lies the measured sweet spot "Appropriate" hits. Both the script and Griffin's high-stakes production, which is exceptionally well-paced and provocatively directed - not to mention entertainingly designed by Yu Shibigaki, Janice Pytel and Jesse Klug - are on strongest ground when it comes to the actual family, as distinct from their spouses. Cheryl Graeff, who plays Bo's wife, Rachael, is stuck with a cliched, one-dimensional character, which seems to happen a lot to this actress, and Karpel's River (yep, that's her name) has similar challenges, though she overcomes many of them by powering on through. But the teen kids of the core family, played by the game Jennifer Baker and the nicely sardonic Alex Stage, ring very true here."
Chicago Sun Times - Somewhat Recommended
"...The actors are exceptional. The play, which is too long, ends far too many times, and features the third "semi-collapsible" house in a season or so, hyperventilates more than it enlightens."
Chicago Reader - Recommended
"...I just found some good advice in the New York Times. It's contained in a little essay by Joyce Wadler, who's surprisingly droll considering that her literary output includes two memoirs of bouts with cancer. Wadler writes a column, addressed to boom generation readers, called I Was Misinformed, and her November 9 installment has to do with getting to a certain age and realizing you have things hidden in the back of your sock drawer that you don't want your survivors finding after you're gone."
Windy City Times - Recommended
"...Can there be greater irony than actors doing their job so well that they totally subvert their play's intent? Miracle-man director Gary Griffin has assembled an ensemble of muscular troupers—including, among others, Kirsten Fitzgerald, Keith Kupferer, Stef Tovar and Cheryl Graeff—all doing what Chicago audiences have come to expect from their favorites. Vivid characterizations and agile timing conspire with a varied stage picture boasting a diversity of visual and vocal presences, to conceal the formulaic structure of a text incorporating a veritable catalogue of current playwrighting fashions. ( Did I mention the hitherto non-physically aggressive kinfolk erupting into a breezily inconsequential brawl in the latter part of the second act?)"
Centerstage - Recommended
"...The story makes the jump from insular family drama to wider cultural inquiry upon the discovery of a photo album filled with antique photos of lynchings. The question of why their father had these photos and what that could possibly mean for him becomes important, but doesn’t entirely overtake the children’s other, more personal issues. That the play remains grounded in their family drama hinders the show’s moral and intellectual ambitions (as in it’s kind of about racism but only kind of) but also means that the show escapes tiresome polemics. While “Appropriate” might not succeed as art, it is rousingly successful as entertainment."
Gapers Block - Recommended
"...Playwright Jacobs-Jenkins, an African-American writer from Brooklyn, has delivered a tightly written play with naturalistic dialogue about a white family that talks around race without ever addressing it directly."
Time Out Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...And what Griffin's staging captures, in addition to everything else, is how family can be infuriating both in presence and absence. At the center of a collection of superb performances stands Fitzgerald as the family "terrorist" Toni, lording over everyone around her about just how hard she's had it. Fitzgerald's Toni is less jagged than that of Humana's Jordan Baker, whose raw, crumbling characterization seemed to emphasize her lack of class mobility compared to brother Bo."
Stage and Cinema - Not Recommended
"...Before 150 torturously excessive minutes are over, enough dirty laundry gets unpacked to defy a fleet of washing machines. At the bitter, empty end—as if we didn’t already know there was something rotten from foundations to hurricane deck–we watch the abandoned house slowly disintegrate until an unseen figure with a flashlight enters, searching for God knows what. I get it, I get it."
ChicagoCritic - Recommended
"...Appropriate is a riveting, explosive drama that is rich in strongly developed characters. It contains smart and stinging dialogue that escalates into mayhem. It is a journey worth taking. It is a powerful work that exposes the ugly history that many families have but deny. I look forward to more plays from Branden Jacobs-Jenkins."
Let's Play at ChicagoNow - Highly Recommended
"...APPROPRIATE intrigues. Jacobs-Jenkins' plot has an estranged family gathering for an estate sale. The story is a multi-layered rummaging. His characters search through the discarded past hoping to find something of value for the future. His dialogue is riddled with subtle nuisances. His siblings relate to each other with the established angst of big sister-little brothers expectations."
Around The Town Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...Dysfunctional families has been a major topic when it comes to entertainment- movies, books, tv shows and of course theater ( where would Tracey Letts be without a dysfunctional family or two). Victory Gardens is now presenting a "co-World" premiere ( with Actors Theatre of Louisville). Written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and directed by Chicago veteran Gary Griffin, "Appropriate" is the story of a family and its history as well as its secrets. Two brothers and a sister, who live their own lives now have lost their father. They are gathering at his "old plantation" home, which was supposed to be a "bed and breakfast" to liquidate what they think is an estate that will pay off his debts and give them a little for themselves, but what they find is some secrets that unleash their inner feelings about who they are and what their lives were and will be."
Chicago Theatre Review - Highly Recommended
"...“Appropriate” is a great evening of theater, it leaves you thinking about your own prejudices and viewpoints. You will love and hate all the characters. Some problems with this family may seem closer than they appear."
Chicagoland Theater Reviews - Recommended
"..."Appropriate" needs trimming, especially in the second act, as the dramatist gropes to close out his farrago. Still, the ongoing knee in the groin verbal clashes keep the spectator's interest level high and the performances cannot be faulted. In the last moments, the show takes on a supernatural Gothic aura that comes totally out of left field and leaves the spectator wondering what point Jacobs-Jenkins is trying to leave us with. I thought it was a major miscalculation on the playwright's part. And the play's title makes no sense. But the titanic performance by Kirsten Fitzgerald saves the night."
Splash Magazine - Recommended
"...Though this may sound like a rather dark night of theatre, the show is thankfully full of genuine moments of comedy that are peppered throughout. This is in no small part due to this exceptionally phenomenal cast. They get the humor across honestly without it feeling like its being forced upon us. Fitzpatrick in particular is incredible as Toni. She is so grounded in her character that she not only seems like a real person, but there’s an immense amount of layers to her that are both dark and delightful at the same time."
