Works by the Black American playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins have appeared on Australian stages in recent years. His Pulitzer-winning Gloria (presented by Sydney independent sector stalwarts Outhouse Theatre Co in 2019; by Melbourne Theatre Company in 2018), Appropriate (Sydney Theatre Company, 2021), and An Octaroon (Queensland Theatre, Brisbane Festival 2017) have all made strong impressions.

Purpose, which premiered at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre in 2023–24, is in some ways Jacobs-Jenkins’ most conservative work to date, embracing the familiar mechanics of the family reunion play and a readymade-for-Broadway sheen.

Tinashe Mangwana in Purpose. Photo © Prudence Upton

The play opens with a direct address from twentysomething Nazareth (“Naz” to his few friends), played here by Tinashe Mangwana. A reclusive nature photographer (lakes are his thing, particularly the fog that gathers over them at dawn), Naz is also the youngest son of Solomon and Claudine Jaspar — leading figures in the Civil Rights movement — and thus a member of an Exceptional Black Family.

It’s an inheritance Naz prefers to downplay, even with his proudly queer best...