Theatre review: Primary Trust finds simple wisdom in small-town life
Andrew Broderick leads a versatile cast through Eboni Booth’s quietly endearing play
Kenneth (Andrew Broderick) with best friend Bert (Broadus Mattison) in the Pulitzer-winning Primary Trust. Photo by Moonrider Productions.
The Arts Club Theatre Company presents Primary Trust to March 2
THERE’S ZERO CHANCE that anybody watching Primary Trust hasn’t experienced loss or loneliness in some form. It’s unlikely, though, that they’ve lived it as completely as Kenneth, the show's endearing and isolated protagonist. Winner of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and now having its Canadian premiere at the Arts Club’s Granville Island Stage, playwright Eboni Booth’s play is a character-driven story about world-shifting personal transformation. It’s also refreshingly unassuming.
Kenneth (Andrew Broderick), as he tells the audience himself, lives in Cranberry, N.Y., a quiet suburb of 15,000 people, mostly white, about 40 minutes from Rochester. It has one post office, two banks, and a bookstore where he has worked since he was 18. For the past 20 years, every day of his life has been exactly the same. By day, he works at the bookstore, helping the elderly owner with bookkeeping and “just about everything else.” By night, he downs sugary two-for-one mai tais in kitschy cocktail glasses at the “oldest tiki bar in New York,” Wally’s, always in the company of his best friend, Bert.
A big reveal comes early on: Bert is imaginary. Kenneth knows this, and it draws a few odd looks, but he’s comfortable living with it. However, when the bookstore is bought out by a developer and he’s left without a job, the sudden change to the quiet rhythm of his life snaps the hard-headed loner into facing things he’s long been avoiding.
In a story like this—centered on a life small in scale—the lead performance is everything, and Broderick delivers. He faces the audience with his hands in his pockets and an unforced delivery. He has to get through a lot of dialogue, and he does it impressively, especially as he moves through shifting shades of vulnerability. The way he portrays his character’s arrested development feels lived-in and it’s effortlessly disarming. You can feel the audience start to root for him, whether he’s stumbling through a job interview or trying to strike up a conversation with Corrina, the new waitress at the tiki bar.
Director Ashlie Corcoran fills out Kenneth’s world with a small but spot-on cast, each actor fleshing out the small-town community with their characters. Andrew Wheeler delightfully takes on the cranky but goodhearted bookstore owner Sam, whose penchant for swearing doesn’t hide the fact that he really cares about Kenneth. He also plays Clay, a loud bank manager who gets distracted reminiscing about his college football days and who warms to Kenneth when he realizes he reminds him of his brother, who suffered a brain injury.
Celia Aloma also entertains in multiple roles, not just playing Corrina, the warm and caring waitress, but switching between the various servers at Wally’s and customers at the bank. She has a lot of fun with it, especially when rattling off food specials in exaggerated accents or quickly shifting between playing old, young, mean, or flirtatious customers.
The town is full of quirks, and oddly enough, the most grounded presence is the one who isn’t real. Broadus Mattison’s Bert is instinctively paternal and likable, always there with a reassuring pat on the back or a nudge when Kenneth needs help navigating the world.
That same warmth extends to most of the people Kenneth meets, even as he fumbles his way through connection in monologues that make sense of social interactions in real time. The fact that he’s spent years holding himself together becomes clear as he slowly lets us (and Corrina) in on the traumatic experiences from his past. There are poignant moments of vulnerability. Kenneth tells us that when he lost his mother as a young boy, “there was a daily, quiet happiness” that left with her. But even as gut-wrenching confessions surface, the play markedly never builds to huge dramatic points.
Life, instead, slowly starts to open up and move along for Kenneth, and Kevin McAllister’s revolving set reflects that, shifting between locations as his world expands.
Anton Lipovetsky performs live piano and guitar throughout. Sometimes the music is part of the setting, as when Corrina and Kenneth sip martinis at a French restaurant. Other times, it subtly tugs at our heart string as it lingers in the background. On the other hand, the sharp ding of bells repeatedly cuts through the play, interrupting thoughts and pulling us into Kenneth’s anxious mental state—even as everything around him feels perfectly pleasant.
A useful adage in therapy is to be thankful for your coping mechanisms as you let them go—they got you here, after all. While Primary Trust doesn’t claim to be therapeutic, it does suggest that the simplest way to find solace is through other people. Grounded and funny, its simple wisdom sneaks up on you, and it’s a pleasure to let yourself take it in. 
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