Scathing, intense, and altogether terrifying. These are the words that come to mind when looking back Second Stage’s "Appropriate": a new, horrifyingly relevant portrait of the dysfunctional American family. You won't believe how much baggage there is to unpack in Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' take on signal-crossing family dynamics coupled with camouflaged racism and antisemitism (all handled with great care by director Lila Neugebauer) that leaves you leaning further and further on the edge of your seat until there's hardly any seat left (you're buckled in within the first 20 or so minutes). It does use a common trope in the family drama genre that we all know, and this time around it's not easy to sympathize with any member of this central family, but this plot twists and turns and jump scares at just the right moments that always seem to stick the landing, and each characters' outer and inner lives are so richly developed, layered, and nuanced that you can forget the term 3-dimensional characters and change it to 4-dimensional characters, and that here is what makes this play an act of pure daring and glass shattering catharsis. Sarah Paulson is riveting; a bonafide standout in a role not always common with her usual genre favorites but knows how to make it her own. But, yes, it is an ensemble play. Everyone in this cast plays off each other like a never-ending game of soccer (lot of verbal, and sometimes physical, kicks) and it just makes each cast member's standalone performance beefier and more tragic than already described by the playwright. There's no question about it: "Appropriate" is a winner that deserves all the attention it has coming its way. You'll sit there feeling terrified, but you'll walk out talking about it long after the curtain's fallen.
