As the chit-chatting, bicycling, late spring afternoon life of Brooklyn’s Prospect Park swirled around us, Corey Stoll excitedly spoke about the need to be reminded multiple times a day of his own mortality.
“My favorite app is called WeCroak,” the actor said, smiling wide, holding his smartphone up. “Five times a day it sends you an alert that says, ‘Don’t forget, you’re going to die.’ It’s the best thing. Inevitably, it pings while I’m in the middle of some petty nonsense in my head. Then I get this alert, and it’s like, ‘Oh yep, it really doesn’t matter.’”
Mortality isn’t just pinging at Stoll on his phone, The big D, the passing of time, the gritty truths of hidden history and what really matters and what does not, also form the pulsating bedrock of Appropriate, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ acclaimed 2013 play about a white family discovering some horrifically racist dirty laundry in its past.
