No impressive sidebar layout

I was excited to try this theme, given its impressive magenta sidebar and overall layout. However, after installing, I just have a grey page that fills the whole screen, allowing you to go to “next post” on the right, “previous post” on the left. I installed the plugins. I made sure I had multiple posts. I looked for obvious, pertinent settings in the customizer.

I’d love to resolve this, but the time investment for hunting down the multitude of reasons a theme might not work as advertised is just too high.
It’s a better use of time just to move on to the next one.