Appropriate at Olney Theatre Center Is a Must-See

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' Appropriate, now playing at Olney Theatre Center's intimate Mulitz-Gudelsky Theatre Lab, arrives in the DC area with serious credentials — the play earned both an Obie Award and a Tony Award for Best Revival following its acclaimed Broadway run — and the production more than lives up to them. So popular has this staging proven that it has already been extended, but time is running out: the show closes April 19.

Appropriate at Olney Theatre Center

The play has deep roots in this region. Jacobs-Jenkins grew up in Takoma, and one of the earliest productions of Appropriate was staged right here at Woolly Mammoth. That local lineage feels fitting for a work that is so keenly attuned to the ways America's violent racial history refuses to stay buried. The story centers on the Lafayette siblings — Toni, Bo, and Franz — who gather at their late father's crumbling Arkansas plantation home to settle the estate. What unfolds over a sweltering summer weekend is part family reunion, part reckoning, as long-buried truths about their father's past come to light and force each sibling to confront what they have chosen to know, deny, or exploit about their own heritage.

The alley staging configuration inside the Mulitz-Gudelsky Theatre Lab is one of the production's most inspired elements. Scenic designer Nadir Bey immerses the audience from the moment they arrive, with the theater entrance dressed in ivy, grasses, and ferns evoking the humid South. Audience members sit facing each other across a cluttered, decaying living room stuffed with heirlooms, junk, and the weight of generations. Sound designer Matthew M. Nielson deploys the relentless drone of 13-year cicadas to spine-tingling effect, building to an almost unbearable pitch that sets the tone for everything that follows. Max Doolittle's lighting deepens the production's moody atmosphere throughout, and it is particularly haunting in the play's final moments.

The ensemble is exceptional across the board, and the praise directed at this cast has been unanimous and enthusiastic. At the center of it all is Kimberly Gilbert as Toni, the eldest sibling who served as caregiver for their dying father and who fights hardest to preserve his memory. Gilbert's performance has drawn some of the most lavish admiration — a portrayal described as commanding, layered, and at times frightening in its intensity. Toni is a character scarred by grief, resentment, and loss, and Gilbert renders her as someone who can be protagonist and antagonist within the same scene, making it impossible to look away.

Jamie Smithson brings real nuance to Franz, the prodigal youngest sibling who resurfaces after a decade of absence with a much younger girlfriend, River, in tow and a recovery program's worth of apologies to offer. The performance strikes a delicate balance between sincerity and manipulation, and Smithson's work in the play's climactic second act is particularly gripping. Cody Nickell is quietly excellent as Bo, the diplomatic middle child who has built a new life in New York and wants nothing more than to close this chapter — only to find the past far stickier than he expected. Dina Thomas gives wife Rachael a sharp edge and a northerner's skeptical eye, while Brigid Wallace Harper turns River — easily a role that could slide into caricature — into a genuinely fascinating and emotionally complex presence. Cole Alex Edelstein's teenage Rhys is moody and remote in precisely the right ways, and young Kirsten Cocks holds her own impressively in the role of Cassidy opposite several seasoned DC stage veterans.

Under Artistic Director Jason Loewith's taut, unflinching direction, Appropriate never lets the audience off the hook. It is a drama that is simultaneously deeply funny and deeply disturbing, and it earns comparisons to the great American family plays — Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, August Wilson — while being entirely its own thing. At nearly three hours, it demands patience, but it rewards that patience with a finale that lingers long after the house lights come up. The questions the play raises about what families choose to remember, what they bury, and what gets passed down whether they want it to or not feel as urgent now as they ever have.

Appropriate plays through April 19, 2026 at Olney Theatre Center, 2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Road, Olney, MD.