Authenticity is both the subject matter and the achievement of The Purists, a highly original and rousing entertainment in its world premiere engagement at Boston’s Huntington Theatre Company. Juilliard playwrighting grad Dan McCabe, a new voice who will assuredly be heard from again, places a disparate urban quintet into conversations and confrontations that pointedly challenge their fixed, “purist” ideas on race, class, rap, musical theater, and (above all) sexuality. The play risks seeming overstuffed or didactic, especially through a somewhat static first act. But in the end a splendidly sensitive cast brings the themes and the humanity to vivid life under the assured direction of Billy Porter, whose Tony-winning Kinky Boots turn proved he knows a lot about occupying stage space in heightened yet believable ways.
Dazzling to the eye, Clint Ramos’s set presents the façade of a rundown Sunnyside, Queens apartment building, one of those edifices surrounded by construction scaffolding that never quite gets taken down. Even the grime on the mailboxes seems to have been baked on over decades. Monarchs of this little kingdom are Brandon Shaw a/k/a Mr. Bugz (J. Bernard Calloway), a famous D.J. about to enter the Hip-Hop Hall of Fame, and Lamont Born Cipher (Morocco Omari), onetime lead artist of Tha Enlightenuz. Why these legends are on their uppers hanging around this dump requires some suspension of disbelief, ditto the presence of a onetime millionaire, gay musical maven Gerry (John Scurti), whose cluttered flat, deliriously decorated with Broadway show cards, we glimpse in a cutaway.
Even if you balk at fully buying these guys’ backstory, their interactions ring true from the opening moments as Gerry’s morning wake-up to Gertrude Lawrence’s singing The King and I is drowned out by Public Enemy’s “Shut Em Down” ruling the street. It’s like the Marseillaise scene in Casablanca, setting a tone of edgy anxiety that underscores good-natured banter over whether, oh, Eminem is the greatest rap artist, or anyone should see Requiem for a Dream a second time. These three souls—not quite strangers, though not perhaps fully bosom friends—share differing worldviews, as well as secrets that will eventually emerge and rock them. But they along with the orphans of Annie (mixed into one of Lamont’s raps) are in agreement on one point. It’s a hard-knock life.
I confess I found act one on the meandering side. (Full disclosure, my theater-savvy companion assuredly did not.) But The Purists certainly takes off when two young, aspiring hip-hoppers take center stage: tart, Puerto Rican Val (Analisa Velez), Gerry’s drug dealer who glides by on a Segway, and giggly, white-bread Nancy (Izzie Steele) who intends her rap musical celebration of Amelia Earhart to strike a blow for feminism in a notably macho’ed-up art form. They’re egged on into a terrific rap battle—if you’re still doubting the power or fun of fly rhyming, this sequence will make you a believer—along with pointed debate over the roots of the genre: to whom it belongs, and for whom it’s intended.
The unimprovable performers make strong connections with each other and with the material, never more so than in Gerry’s memoir of his old friend Bob Ross (the real-life “fuzzy-headed dude” whose segue from the military into teaching painting on TV Scurti relates with heartbreaking delicacy). And when things threaten to get a little on-the-nose—like many an actor-turned-playwright, McCabe has a tendency to overwrite his 1:1 showdowns—Porter is there to see that the playing stays balanced, infused with just the right amount of ease.
Nothing much is resolved by the end, save the general realization that “keeping it real” means keeping it a little flexible, a little empathetic. It requires relaxing any purist instincts so as to be open to difference, and just a little less sure about people than you were a couple of minutes ago. This comes as a refreshing message, especially in our current I-know-best-and-everyone-I-disagree-with-is-the-devil culture, and we’re treated to a swell time while the message is delivered.
The Purists opened September 14, 2019, at the Huntington Theatre Company (Boston) and runs through October 6. Tickets and information: www.huntingtontheatre.org
