Currently running at the Hayes Theatre, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s “Purpose” joins the important pantheon of plays about families, dysfunctional families in particular. These plays, including Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s recent “Appropriate,” focus on the behavior patterns and the social practices that undermine and often destroy the integrity of family systems. Sometimes there is confession, forgiveness, and redemption in these narratives. Far too often these narratives dissolve into brokenness and despair.

Solomon “Sonny” Jasper (a towering, flawed, and repentant Harry Lennix) is the patriarch of the prominent Illinois Black family whose members grapple with the themes of identity, legacy, and redemption. Though Solmon has a flawed past, he cherishes his legacy as celebrated civil rights leader, and demands accountability from his family, especially from his two sons Nazareth “Naz” (a fractured but resilient Jon Michael Hill) and Solmon “Junior” (a broken and bitter Glenn Davis) and from Sonny’s wife Morgan (a powerful and engaging Alana Arenas).

Although matriarch Claudine Jasper (a faithful but tortured Latanya Richardson Jackson) has spent her life supporting “Sonny” – even giving up her law career to do so – and doing her best to hold the rest of the family together despite her sons’ challenges. Nazareth, younger of the two, claims asexuality as his sexual status and Junior is an ex-convict who suffers from a bipolar condition. Junior and his wife have a fractured relationship.

To make matters more problematic for the heads of the household, “Naz’s” friend Aziza (a penetrating and forceful Kara Young) – eschewing the Willima Sonoma turkey baster “method of choice” – recently requested and received “his sperm” because as a queer woman she deserved “the best” of donor donations methods. At the narrative’s start, Aziza shows up at the Jasper residence to return the phone charger “Naz” left in her car. Although “Naz” cannot wait to get his former Harlem neighbor back on the road, Claudine insists Aziza stay with the Jaspers because of the snowstorm.

Aziza’s arrival precipitates the psychological storm that is the crisis of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s engaging psychological drama. This dysfunctional family system, although held together by the heads of the Jasper household, the fissures in the fabric of the family system are too fragile to survive that storm. All hell breaks loose in a family system designed to avoid that judgement.

Aziza’s and Nazareth’s disclosure is the cause of the breakup of the Jasper family system. Each member is required to carefully examine their motivations, their fears, and their disappointments. They are required to reestablish purpose in each of their lives and in the life of the family.

Phylicia Rashad moves the action of “Purpose” along with appropriate forward motion. Whether the scenes are comedic or dramatic, she ushers the actors and the audience through the narrative seamlessly and with pitch perfect timing. Her direction in all of Nazareth “Naz” narrator scenes and the actor’s remarkable craft anchor the play and the actors’ conflicts in authenticity and believability.

“Purpose” is an important deep dive into the dynamics of family, the power of forgiveness, and the need for redemption.