‘Primary Trust’ @ Stage West

Photos by Taylor Staniforth / TayStan Photography

—Jan Farrington

When Primary Trust won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, I read a bit about it—and wondered how such a small-sounding story could have snagged the prize.

Now I know.

Eboni Booth’s play is a small story. It does have amusing echoes of Mister Rogers Neighborhood (Allen Dean’s set design is quietly adorable) and Our Town and even Sesame Street: Who are the people in your neighborhood? Its central character has an imaginary friend.

And you will be glad, so glad you saw it.

This “small” story will pull you in like a big warm hug. It will remind you that everyone’s life is important, and interesting. And that sometimes all it takes to change a life is a bit of kindness and imagination.

Last week, I needed some theater that felt personal, warm, and hopeful—that put the worries of the macro world in better balance with the importance of the micro. And for that and other reasons, Stage West’s regional premiere of Primary Trust felt very much a reponse to right now.

Directed with practically-perfect instincts by Sasha Maya Ada, who benefits (well, it’s a two-way street) from a tremendous cast of four, we are first introduced to lonely Kenneth (Lee George), a fragile Black man who lives alone in tiny Cranberry, New York—and who spends almost every evening drinking Mai Tai’s in Wally’s, the area’s “oldest tiki bar.”

Kenneth doesn’t drink alone—his best friend Bert (Jamal Sterling) is almost always there with advice, jokes, or a look that says Ken’s had enough for this evening. Kenneth’s Mom died when he was a boy, and his main human connection is a job with Sam (Brian Mathis), who runs Cranberry’s only book store.

Then Sam has to sell the store, and Kenneth is set adrift. What will he do with himself? As he drinks and ponders the future in Wally’s, we meet a parade of waitresses, played with hilarious quick-changes of age, posture, NY accent, accessories and attitude by Tiana Kaye Blair.

I can’t spoil the story with too much detail. Suffice it to say that Wally’s hires a new waitress (also Blair) who looks twice at Kenneth, as does Clay the football-happy bank manager (Mathis again; he also plays a curled-lip French waiter in Cranberry’s only white-tablecloth joint), who says Ken reminds him of someone.

Of such accidents and randomness is a life made.

Booth’s fine-tuned sense of language and theatrical structure gives Primary Trust a remarkable level of everyday poetry. Kenneth is at times our narrator, filling in his back story and telling us more about the emotions and trauma he hides on the stage. Phrases and catch-lines are used repeatedly, gaining weight and resonance each time. It isn’t just the warmth of the story that lingers, it’s the quiet, insistent rhythms of the telling.

I may need to go again.

WHEN: January 30-February 16, 2025
WHERE: 821 West Vickery Blvd., Fort Worth
WEB: stagewest.org