"Primary Trust"
Detroit Repertory Theatre
Detroit, Mich.
Through Dec. 28, 2025
A recent New York Times article interviewed three people who fell in love with A.I. chatbots. It cited a study that found one in five American adults had an intimate encounter with a chatbot and noted an 85,000-member Reddit thread, r/MyBoyfriendisAI, for people “dating” A.I. chatbots. And this is happening all over the world.
This came to mind when I was watching Eboni Booth’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, “Primary Trust,” now at Detroit Repertory Theatre, directed by Antoine McKay. While the play was written in 2021 and set in a vague time “before smartphones” – before the emergence of A.I. dating – the story explores the importance of real human connection.
It follows Kenneth, a socially anxious, isolated 38-year-old who divides his time between working as a bookseller and drinking Mai Tais at Wally’s tiki restaurant, his “favorite place in the world.” He introduces us to his best friend Bert, who joins him every evening to catch up on their days and share their thoughts and feelings about the world, a rather mundane existence but one that seems harmless enough. But there’s a catch – Bert isn’t real, and Kenneth is forthright that Bert is his imaginary best friend who has been his primary relationship and confidante since his childhood.
When he loses his 20-year job at the bookshop – where his boss is his only source of real human connection – his life is thrown into chaos, and he’s forced to navigate the waters of finding a new job and working with new people. Though he is surrounded by human kindness, he is hesitant to accept it.
As Kenneth develops relationships with his co-workers and new friend Corrina, we learn the heartbreaking depths and source of his loneliness but also the power of kindness and importance of human relationships.
The one-act play is moving but slow at times. It comes into its own toward the end with the culmination of Kenneth’s internal turmoil as he desperately clings to the safety of his lonely life and the possibilities of moving beyond it.
The play is well cast. John Alexander Hatcher leads as Kenneth, capturing the complicated emotions of a man in chaos, self-aware enough to know he needs real human relationships but terrified to leave the comfort of essentially the only life he’s ever known.
Rose DeSantis steals the show as Corrina and about a dozen other bit characters. She is a welcome source of comic relief as she jumps among a range of ages, genders and personalities as various Wally’s servers and bank customers.
T. Pharaoh Muhammad as Bert and Patrick O’Lear as Kenneth’s employers round out the primary cast as the endearing and somewhat opposing sides of Kenneth’s inner struggles.
While I didn’t find the play riveting, it touches on an important topic and social problem that is becoming more apparent in our increasingly technologically advancing society that is now able to create scarily life-like imaginary friends. But “Primary Trust” is also optimistic, demonstrating the power of human kindness and what can happen when we risk the safety of our comfort zones. To paraphrase one of the play’s most poignant quotes, “We all lose everything in the end, but it’s about finding as much as we can along the way.”
