The Comeuppance
It feels like just yesterday that ‘millennial’ was synonymous with ‘young’. But in Branden Jacobs-Jenkins rancorous dark comedy, a group of late thirtysomething American friends marvel at how much they’ve all lived through: 9/11, Iraq, Columbine, the Covid pandemic. And that’s on top of the baggage they’re all still carrying from high school, which they can’t even remember clearly, but has shaped their lives nonetheless. Oh and Death – as in, the actual Grim Reaper – is knocking about, occasionally possessing one of the five pals in order to deliver a monologue to the audience. The play’s catalyst is Emilio (Anthony Welsh), who has been living in Europe as an artist for over a decade, but is back in town for his twentieth-anniversary high school reunion. Has he moved on from school? He has absolutely not moved on from school: whatever his intention was when he returned, he is soon poking at old trauma, relitigating ancient grudges, and starting fights over things that happened over half his lifetime ago. Not that he lacks reasons. His circle of friends – who used to dub themselves the Multi Ethnic Reject Group or MERGE (‘it’s a soft g’) – have gathered at the home of Tamara Lawrance’s Ursula for drinks, ahead of taking an ironic prom-style ‘party limo’ to the reunion. But Emilio is dumbfounded by the presence of Paco (Ferdinand Kingsley), the older ex-boyfriend of his erstwhile best friend Caitlin (Yolanda Kettle). Abusive to Caitlin in the past, Paco is now a somewhat piti