Primary Trust, the 2024 Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Eboni Booth, found a home at the Outcalt Theatre at the Cleveland Playhouse February 8-March 1, 2026 – and invited Adoption Network Cleveland as its guest to support two talkback sessions after the February 21st and February 28th matinee performances.
After our Executive Director Betsie Norris and our Director of Programs Ty Cliffel attended the February 21st performance and participated in the post-show discussion, some key themes emerged that we see impacting the community we serve at Adoption Network Cleveland.
To begin, Primary Trust looks at how early loss shapes an entire life – in this instance Kenneth, the play’s main character. Rather than focusing on dramatic trauma, his story shows us how someone builds safety, identity, and connection after a foundational rupture.
We identified three central ideas that deepen our understanding of Kenneth: attachment and early loss; de-pathologizing Kenneth’s behavior; and recognizing his coping strategies as intelligent developmental adaptations.
The title Primary Trust references Erik Erikson’s idea that the earliest developmental task is learning that the world is reliable, including caregivers. Kenneth experiences a rupture in this foundational trust when his mother dies. This is a core attachment trauma that becomes structural, not just emotional.
This early loss shapes his adult nervous system. Kenneth’s quiet routines, his loyalty to the bookstore, and his predictability are trauma-informed self-regulation strategies, not personality quirks. For someone whose first major attachment disappeared, predictability becomes safety. Change feels like danger. His life may look “small,” but it is designed for survival and soothing his nervous system.
Second, the play invites us to de-pathologize Kenneth. His behavior is adaptive within the context of early loss. Kenneth does not lack attachment capacity. He has simply learned to attach where the risk of loss feels minimal - a classic pattern of earned avoidance, which is a survival skill, not a pathology. Remember, if change feels like danger, avoiding change feels like a survival skill.
Let’s unpack this in the context of Kenneth’s relationships with other characters in the play. We see Kenneth’s early healthy attachment capacity that he developed with his mother before she died reflected in how he trusts and accepts support from his social worker Bert, who teaches him coping strategies like counting and self-talk.
These tools become lifelong regulation skills. After his placement, unable to endure another loss, Kenneth continues the relationship with Bert in his own inner world, a profound sign of attachment, not detachment. Sam, the bookstore owner, provides a stable, accepting relationship, giving Kenneth a positive experience of dependable adult connection. Kenneth’s long tenure at the bookstore is a testament to how deeply he values steady, low-risk relationships. Corrina, a waitress at the neighborhood bar Wally’s, becomes a true friend who meets Kenneth where he is—offering support without pressure, allowing him to participate at his own pace. She models a safe friendship with warmth, encouragement, and consistency. Clay, the manager at the bank where Kenneth works, provides one of the play’s most meaningful attachment moments: Kenneth makes a mistake, flees, apologizes, then remains in relationship. This is rupture and repair, a cornerstone of healthy attachment.
For someone shaped by early loss, learning that conflict does not equal abandonment can deepen trust and expand relational capacity.
The play also shows secondary loss as reactivation of original trauma. This is why losing his job destabilizes Kenneth so profoundly: it echoes the early loss of his mother. It is a change that feels like a dangerous survival threat that he has structured his life around avoiding.
Finally, Primary Trust asks us to honor Kenneth’s strategies as developmentally intelligent coping. Kenneth finds low-risk safety in attachment to places. Wally’s bar serves as a secure base: it’s predictable, non-demanding, and emotionally stable. For someone who is afraid of losing people, places become safer anchors. Kenneth’s small, structured world is a grief-shaped compromise, not stagnation. He learned to take up less emotional space. This is a common pattern in children who fear that needing too much risks abandonment.
Adoption-competent frameworks describe healing as expanded capacity, not transformation. So it is true for Kenneth, because in the end he does not become a different person, he simply takes small relational risks. He remains himself—just with a little more room. As the script beautifully notes, Kenneth is not broken. He is organized around a wound that once saved his life.
Primary Trust offers a compassionate, ethically grounded depiction of early loss, showing that survival often looks quiet: routines, restraint, small circles, careful choices. Kenneth’s story honors the courage it takes not to change dramatically, but to risk trusting again—just a little.
We thank Cleveland Playhouse for this great opportunity to be part of the Primary Trust run in 2026 – and with a few days left in the performance run, we encourage anyone who’s interested to check the show out! Use the code PARTNER at checkout for 25% off. The show closes on Sunday, March 1, 2026. More information about tickets available here.
