Review: PRIMARY TRUST at Vermont Stage

Vermont Stage’s production of Primary Trust celebrates unexpected kindness in a tender story about a neuro-divergent man who loses his job, and abruptly encounters the world that he has avoided all his life. Primary Trust, written by Eboni Booth, and directed by Jammie Patton, opened at Main Street Landing on March 19th and runs through April 6th. The play was the winner of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

The play opens with the precariously emotional Kenneth alone on stage addressing the audience. Kenneth (played with delicate nuance and grit by Delanté Keys) introduces the play by saying “This is a story about friendship. A story about love and balance and time. And the smallest of chances”.

Booth’s story centers on how Kenneth, a survivor of childhood trauma, navigates a rocky transformative journey from social isolation to community connection.

Kenneth, an 38 year-old African-American, lived a sheltered life in this predominantly white small town outside Rochester, New York, at a time before cell phones. Kenneth lived in an orphanage after mother died when he was ten. For almost twenty years, Kenneth kept an unbroken routine of working at Yellowed Pages bookstore during the day, and drinking mai tais in the evening at Wally’s, a colorful local tiki bar. While it seemed to Kenneth that he was enjoying multiple mai tai’s every evening with his Best Friend Bert (played with appealing bonhomie intensity by Donathan Walters); in reality, Kenneth is drinking for two, because Bert, as Kenneth tells the audience early in the play, exists only in Kenneth’s imagination.

Everything changes when the bookstore closes, and Kenneth spends even more time drinking mai tai’s while despairing of ever finding a new job. At Wally’s and around town, Kenneth has acquired a sort of invisibility, perhaps partially due to continual turnover of staff at the tiki bar. The revolving cast of characters who are servers at Wally’s as well as an assortment of bank customers are played by Natalie Jacobs with remarkable versatility and particularity. Jacobs also plays Corinna, a server who becomes Kenneth’s friend, and while Jacob’s portrayals of the servers and bank customers are delivered with a tasteful dollop of stylistic camp; in contrast, Corrina is thoughtful, kind and a good listener. Corrina encourages Kenneth to apply for a job at a local bank, Primary Trust.

Kenneth’s job interview at the bank goes poorly, but he gets the job anyway. Mark Roberts (last seen in Vermont Stage’s Translations) gives stellar performances as Sam, the emotionally retreating bookstore owner and Clay, the energetic bank manager, in scenes where both characters show unexpected kindness to Kenneth at a time when it most matters.

Kenneth is inspirational because he has the courage to seek connection with others but still give voice to underlying emotional dissonance. His job at the bank goes well because of his ability to fill in the rote sales mantras with his vibrant but vulnerable presence when speaking to customers, and that puts him in competition for a sales award.

When Clay assures him of his success at the bank, saying “You’ve been selling like a bastard, excuse my French”, Kenneth replies “It’s okay, I’m an orphan.”

Booth’s artistry is at play when showing us how even when Kenneth meets success, he can’t feel a harmony with his environment. Kenneth leaves the bank to go for a walk alone in the cold, windy night. He speaks directly to the audience saying “I should have been happy. But I felt quiet and lonely. Why did I want to howl like a wild animal?” He then repeats the town motto “Welcome friend, you’re right on time”, which Kenneth introduced to the audience earlier in the play, but at this juncture, it is questionable whether Kenneth feels the inclusivity put forward in the slogan.

The subtleties Booth employs in Primary Trust are delicate and indirect, and perhaps not for the faint of heart. The play is a roller coaster of emotion, running from loneliness to connection. Booth uses language to convey how words can carry emotional meaning in one minute and become empty in a clique in the next sentence.

The crisis in the play is ultimately resolved when people choose kindness and understanding in their interactions with Kenneth.

Eventually Kenneth joins his co-workers from the bank at happy hour, and sings along to “We Built This Town” (an anti-corporate anthem by Star, an aenigma voted “Worst Song of the 80’s” in Rolling Stone magazine). With references such as this, it may be that what is unsaid in the play is as important as what is explicitly shown.

The production, directed by Jammie Patton, coalesces the emotional and social contrasts of the play with streamlined and elegant set design by Jeff Modereger, beautiful lighting effects from Jamien Forrest, and distinctive costumes by Sarah Sophia Lidz. Compact set pieces transforming bare stage into offices and stores are jettisoned on and off stage by Catherine Grace and Daniel Kandra.

Playwright Eboni Booth has a local connection to Vermont as she is a graduate of UVM (also of Juilliard.) An earlier play, Paris, is set in a big box store off a highway in Vermont, exploring themes of isolation and workplace culture.

If you go see the Vermont Stage production of Primary Trust, you might walk out feeling as if someone just gave you a big hug. And everyone can use that these days.

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