‘Primary Trust’ offers hope in a too-quickly changing world Through Sept 6 at the Weston Theater's Walker Farm

By Lorien Strange
©2026 Telegraph Publishing LLC

After our worst fears are realized, we rebuild. But what do we do when the structures we make to cope hurt us, too?

Weston Theater’s production of Eboni Booth’s Primary Trust  is a map of one man’s struggle back through the cracks into equilibrium — not escaping change, but finding balance through it. This  Pulitzer Prize-winning play is an ode to presence, staying in the moment even when past, present, and future alike are daunting.

Kenneth (Michael Allyn Crawford) is a 38-year-old working in a suburban bookshop near Rochester, N.Y. He survived a traumatic childhood and now thinks he’s doing alright. He has his routines: sorting books by day and getting crazy drunk on mai tais by night. He says he’s even mostly used to the racial discrimination in his predominantly white town.

In fact, he’s so accustomed to his habits that he doesn’t even realize he’s lonely. He’s got Bert (Raphael Peacock), after all — his best friend and drinking buddy who gives Kenny all the shadows of love he needs.

But Bert is imaginary. And when Kenneth is forced out of his job of 28 years, he has to confront how the rhythms of his old “new normal” have been hurting him.

David Bonanno plays a heartfelt curmudgeon, an ex-footballer-turned-banker and a purveyor of figurative and actual bad French.

It would be easy for Kenneth to be just a pitiable odd duck — who wouldn’t be after what he’s been through? But Crawford’s portrayal makes it clear that he’s a sensitive soul. He’s respectful but barred from making the leap to kindness by the loss he carries.

His presence relaxes into the warmth of something real the moment Bert steps on stage with the word “friend.” Peacock’s Bert feels a bit like Sesame Street’s Gordon, only during a Happy Hour —shining bald, warm and familiar with slightly more adult jokes.

Bert’s unscripted actions are a miracle blend of set design, direction by Bobbin Ramsey, and good acting. Thanks to a well-positioned window ledge and the curved ramp from the wall to the floor, Bert appears to float in one scene. The casual dignity of his reposed perch lends a more literal feeling to the role of guardian angel he so often plays.

When he’s not drinking too many mai tais or helping Kenneth with breathing exercises, Bert sits in the wings of the stage, as outlined by the gallows-like half door-frames on either side of the stage.

All the furniture not in use during a scene is crowded in these corners. And there, Bert might flip through some books from the now-sold used bookstore or rest momentarily forgotten in the darkness of their usual table at the tiki bar.

His actions are never intrusive but show Kenneth’s subconscious at work, processing everything that occurs.

Many productions of Primary Trust rely on actors on a child-sized set to portray Kenneth’s out-of-placeness in his world. But Weston warps the fabric entirely to play with the audience’s perceptions of time.

Set designer Omid Akbari immerses us in an ethereal environment. There is no distinction between the wood-paneled wall and floor. Both are painted with a subtle sky. Interior and exterior windows seem to drift across the stage. And a clock with no hands hangs ominously in one corner.

The windows are also part of Kyle Stamm’s magical lighting design. They illuminate from their edges in, creating a warmth that still rings of isolation in the darker space they leave in their centers.

Amelia Windom plays a rolling register of characters, mostly servers at the tiki bar. But Windom refuses to let them blend into a uniformity, even with countless onstage character transitions literally at the drop of a hat.

She staggers over as a doddering lady counting her bills, flexes her muscles poorly as a 20-something bro — one tiny motion and the audience is instantly charmed by her new character.

Then as Corinna, she shines as the foil to Kenneth’s social anxiety. Outgoing but still awkward, her authenticity is what allows her not just to enjoy Kenneth’s company but truly become his friend.

In a pop culture that can’t get enough of trauma-bonding romance stories, it’s refreshing to see cross-gender platonic connections so lovingly explored. Things do get a bit awkward between Kenny and Corinna sometimes. But Crawford and Windom pull it off with the stumbling grace that true friends can.

An often criticized aspect of other productions of Primary Trust is the incorporation of a bell, which sounds to mark points of emotional connection or disconnection in the story.

In Weston’s reimagining of the signal as gentle notes from a guitar, it becomes a meditation bell. It’s Kenneth’s grounding in recognition of emotional reference points. And that includes uncomfortable ones, like racism or other forms of discrimination.

The chiming here is the ticking of the handless clock — the story keeps regular time in emotional moments.

Sound Designers Daniela Hart, Bailey Trierweiler and Noel Nichols also brilliantly set scenes concretely in each of the locations the script demands where the set elements are more abstract. People talking at the tiki bar, office noises at the bank, and chilly autumn air are rendered so convincingly, I caught myself wondering if they’d deliberately turned up the theater’s AC.

I was lucky enough to see the first preview performance of this production. It was so well-executed that I could scarcely believe that the cast had only gotten to the set a few days before.

The play begins by acknowledging that soon, the world it shows will be gone; the old bookstore will become a parking lot; Kenneth’s new job as a bank teller will shortly be mostly obsolete.

It’s a position that many of us find ourselves in now. Sometimes, it’s easy to forget the Covid pandemic and its isolation ever happened. We don’t think twice about going to the grocery store or the transfer station without a mask. But in an age of imaginary friends conceived by AI, are we really less lonely than we were before? Weston’s Primary Trust has the map to fix that.

Primary Trust runs through Sunday, Sept. 6 at the Walker Farm Theater, 705 Main St. in Weston. Tickets are $25 to $94 and are selling out quickly.  Click here for tickets.