‘Primary Trust’ offers a tender look at loneliness and friendship

Petey McGee and Rebecca S’Manga Frank in ‘Primary Trust’ at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. (Photo by Knud Adams)

If you hurry, you can still catch the Mark Taper Forum’s Los Angeles premiere of Eboni Booth’s 2024 Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Primary Trust,” with exceptional direction by Knut Adams, through June 28.

It’s worth making the effort. It’s a story and a communal experience we need now.

In 2023, the Surgeon General issued an advisory declaring loneliness a public health epidemic. Dr. Vivek Murthy wrote, “We must prioritize building social connection the same way we have prioritized other critical public health issues such as tobacco, obesity, and substance use disorders.”

This is a sensitive, tender and funny story of community, friendship and loneliness.

In a time before cellphones, Kenneth, played in a hesitant, awkward yet powerful way by Petey McGee, is a 38-year-old emotionally damaged Black man living in the fictional town of Cranberry, a suburb of Rochester, N.Y. He was orphaned at 10 and has been working in the same used bookstore since he was 18.

The set design by Marsha Ginsberg is a miniature Main Street featuring Wally’s, the Primary Trust bank and other buildings. It has the feel of Thornton Wilder’s Grover’s Corners in “Our Town.”

Kenneth enters through the audience and tries to tell them what they are about to see. Finally, he says, “This is a story of how if you had asked me six months ago if I was lonely, I would have said——.” A bell rings. Then, after a brief pause, he adds, “This is the story of a friendship.” A bell rings.

In the script, Booth has interspersed stage directions that read “time ripples.” Adams, who directed the 2023 world premiere at the Roundabout Theatre in New York and the 2024 West Coast premiere at the La Jolla Playhouse, has translated that to bells and music. The bells ring when there is an emotional shift in one of the characters or scenes. In a sense, they are somewhat similar to Harold Pinter’s “pauses” in his plays.

Luke Wygodny is the composer of the world premiere’s original music and the musician who plays the bell, cello, guitar and keyboards throughout the play. He performs with his back to the audience, in front of the actors. Wygodny is a wonderful musician who creates a remarkable effect. It’s not musical theater; it’s a play with a score.

Every day, Kenneth spends happy hour drinking two-for-one mai tais at the local tiki bar, Wally’s, with his best friend Bert, played in a broad, good-natured and outgoing manner by Ugo Chukwu.

Except Bert is his imaginary friend.

Bert was the social worker who searched out Kenneth after he hadn’t been to school for six days. He discovered Kenneth hiding in a kitchen closet, holding his mother, who had died of cancer and whom Kenneth had found after coming home from school one day. Kenneth had dragged her body to the kitchen closet and hidden away with her.

Bert was the kindest person Kenneth had ever met. Then Bert disappeared from his life. Kenneth entered an orphanage and the foster system. That would have been until he was 18 and released into the world on his own with a couple of hundred dollars. It appears social services placed him in a job at a bookstore.

Kenneth keeps his head down and has his routine at the bookstore, working for the elderly Sam. That routine crumbles when Sam announces he is closing the shop because of his health.

Kenneth has lost his bearings when he joins Bert at Wally’s. Bert has him relax by counting down with him. Kenneth struggles with the concept of a job interview, thinking he may end up on the street.

James Urbaniak and Rebecca S’Manga Frank play numerous roles that they performed in the La Jolla production.

Urbaniak is energetically humorous as Sam and as Clay, the manager of the Primary Trust bank, who has a son on the spectrum. He hires Kenneth as a bank teller. Urbaniak is also hilarious as the waiter in the French restaurant who, with enormous caution, in case he spills a drop, delivers two martinis to Kenneth and Corinna.

Rebecca S’Manga Frank is an audience favorite, playing 22 characters, including waitresses at Wally’s and customers at the bank. The audience was in stitches with her portrayal of an elderly Black woman counting out her bank deposit so painstakingly slowly. She is also pivotal as Corinna, the Wally’s waitress who truly sees Kenneth, befriends him, treats him with kindness and suggests he apply for a job at Primary Trust.

Kenneth makes a choice and, despite his fears, applies for the job. Clay hires him. Clay has a son on the spectrum. There is a disturbing event when Kenneth makes a mistake, a customer yells at him, and he has a meltdown. But Clay is understanding.

Clay has trained him in cross-selling, like offering customers additional add-ons and options, a credit card, etc. Kenneth excels at this, eventually becoming the number one seller.

Corinna and Clay become Kenneth’s friends. That act of kindness is a trigger that allows Kenneth to make a choice and engage directly with others for the first time in his adult life. He doesn’t need his imaginary friend.

I’ve spent 15 years as a teacher and school administrator in a public school within a Department of Children’s Services and Department of Mental Health emergency shelter for the 200 young people who fall through the cracks — the most difficult young people to place, traumatized, abused, neglected and abandoned students who have no more relatives to go to and have been through countless foster homes and group homes. Those were young people that society largely ignores.

Kenneth would not be the most serious of these young people, but just the same, he carries his trauma with him every day.

“Primary Trust” appears to be naive and idealistic. A simple quick fix. Easy. It doesn’t deal with Kenneth’s self-medication with alcohol or his mental health issues. Has human kindness overflowing cured him?

Maybe it’s something we need to see and hear now. It is about friendship and how we can make a difference by taking a moment to listen, be kind and notice each other deeply.

The skill that lies at the heart of healthy organizations and communities is the ability to truly see each other. To make each other feel valued, heard and understood. That’s the story of this play.

Hope is a choice. Kindness is a choice. Listening is a choice. Friendship is a choice.