Review: Alliance’s ‘Purpose’ is polished and funny but familiar

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ 2025 Pulitzer- and Tony-winning play Purpose, at the Alliance through September 20, pours contemporary political urgency into a classic theatrical container — the sprawling, multigenerational family drama.

The Jaspers are a prominent Black political dynasty with roots stretching back to the Civil Rights Movement, giving their domestic conflicts an added historical weight. Yet for all its accumulated revelations, Purpose frequently retreads well-worn ground. Five family members gather under one roof; predictably, old wounds surface, loyalties are tested and long-buried secrets emerge.

Jacobs-Jenkins stacks the deck with dramatic issues. There’s faith, politics, sexual identity, mental health, suicide, divorce, generational conflict and the burdens of a distinguished family legacy (I’ve probably left something out, but the playwright didn’t). None of the issues comes into focus as the play’s central concern. At roughly 170 minutes, Purpose can feel less like one sharply defined drama than several potentially interesting family dramas noisily competing for space.

While Purpose is full of revelations, I found it difficult to be shocked by any of them. In 2026, family dysfunction has lost much of its ability to surprise, or even compel, on its own. The problem is not that the revelations are unbelievable; it’s that they rarely became emotionally consequential enough to make us truly care about the people receiving them.

The strongest element here is Nazareth Jasper, the youngest son, played by Travis Turner. Naz serves as both participant and narrator, stepping out of the action to reflect on what we’re watching. Turner gives Naz an appealing combination of intelligence, plain-spoken humor and vulnerability. His narration also gives the audience a useful vantage point on the family’s increasingly complicated dynamics.

The best scenes unfold at the end of the second act between Naz and his father, Solomon, played by Cornell Womack. Their relationship has a tenderness and specificity that the larger drama often lacks. 

Victoria Omoregie also gets some of the evening’s best laughs as Aziza Houston, an outsider who finds herself drawn into the Jasper family. Omoregie has a terrific comic presence, and the production wisely allows humor to coexist with its heavier material. A bit of business in which Aziza poses for selfies in the Jaspers’ home is among the evening’s funniest moments. 

The entire ensemble, including Donna Biscoe, Veanna Black and Jay Jones, is strong and convincing under Keith Arthur Bolden’s direction. And it’s well worth mentioning that the Alliance has given them an extraordinary home. Sotirios Livaditis’ living room set is almost startlingly detailed, with gorgeous stained glass, an elegant wooden staircase, multiple entrances and exits and the suggestion of a world outside its windows with falling snow, no less. Ben Rawson’s lighting gives Naz’s narration its own visual vocabulary, effectively separating him from the family action when he addresses the audience.

But the production’s polish also contributes to the emotional distance. The set, performances, comic timing and lighting are so precisely calibrated that the evening occasionally takes on the slickness of television — even, at times, the polished artificiality of a sitcom. Purpose never became emotionally real enough for me to lose sight of the fact that I was watching an expertly constructed play.

There’s plenty to admire here, but, for all its contemporary subjects and accomplished production, Purpose never made its familiar family-drama machinery feel newly urgent. It was good, and sometimes very good, without ever becoming revelatory. 

Where and When 

Purpose is at the Alliance through September 20. Tickets start around $48 and depend on seating and date of show.
1280 Peachtree St. NE.

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Andrew Alexander is an Atlanta-based writer, editor and arts journalist. A longtime contributor and former senior editor at ArtsATL, his work appears regularly in local, regional and national publications, covering theater, visual art, music, film, dance, literature and the artists and institutions shaping Atlanta’s cultural landscape.