Going Back to "Pass Over"—and live theater

 

I went to see a show this week.  There was a time when that wouldn’t have been a remarkable statement. I routinely saw 150 shows a year and shared my thoughts about many of them here. But, of course, that was in the before time: before the global Covid pandemic struck, before it killed some 700,000 people in this country and a total of 4.5 million around the world, before the threat of even more infections, hospitalizations and deaths shut down theaters everywhere.  

My husband K and I have social distanced aggressively during the past 19 months, venturing out only for occasional grocery trips and for two memorial services, neither of the deaths caused by the virus. We stayed cautious even last spring when we got vaccinated and at the beginning of this past summer when it looked as though the worst might be behind us and some live performances began popping up. My theatergoing buddy Bill and I even tried one of those outdoor productions. But then, the more insidious delta variant arrived and I scurried back into hibernation, where I tried to scratch my theater itch with productions streamed online.

But over the past month, a dozen shows have opened in Broadway theaters, including such warhorses as Wicked and The Lion King and newbies like Six, which had been scheduled to open March 12, 2020, the night the pandemic forced the lights to go out on Broadway. There have been openings at smaller theaters around the city too. And more are scheduled for the rest of the year.  

There have been some setbacks. Aladdin had to close down for 10 days after the virus insinuated its way through that company. But rigorous testing of cast and crew members, along with additional safety protocols have kept other shows going (click here to read about some of those measures). 

Meanwhile producers and theater owners have tried to woo theatergoers back with such anti-virus protections as limiting entry only to those who show proof of vaccination or negative results from recent testing, insisting on the wearing of masks throughout performances and, in some cases, installing high-powered air purification systems.

Many of my friends jumped at the chance to return. They reported back about tearing up as they walked back into theaters for the first time, cheering the pre-show announcements and joining extended standing ovations.  Finally, nervously, I’ve joined them. 

I went to see Pass Over, before its short seven-week run at the August Wilson Theatre closes this weekend. It's one of the many works by black playwrights scheduled for this fall season, an acknowledgment of the racial reckoning in the theater community and elsewhere in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd. 

Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu’s response to the massacre of black men by white law enforcement officials across the country is also an audacious riff on Waiting for Godot. She sets her play on an urban street corner, populated by a single street lamp and two young black men named Kitch and Moses who, like Vladimir and Estragon in Samuel Beckett’s original, dream of getting off the block but are unable to figure out how to do it. 

Two white characters show up.  One is a seeming do-gooder, dressed in a white suit and eager to share his lunch with Kitch and Moses. The other is a cop, wearing reflector sunglasses and carrying a billy club, who’s determined to humiliate them. The fact that the white men are played by the same actor underscores Nwandu’s message of white duplicity.

At moments during the play, Moses and Kitch are literally paralyzed with fear of what the cops, or po-pos as they call them, can do to black men like them. And yet, like Godot, Pass Over manages to balance both humor and despair.  

I’d seen the show when it played at LCT3 in 2018 and I was knocked out by it. The excellent cast here remains the same as then with John Michael Hill as Moses, Namir Smallwood as Kitch (although understudy Julian Robertson performed at my matinee) and Gabriel Ebert as the white characters. 

But Nwandu, explaining that she no longer wanted to dwell on black pain, has since crafted a different ending for the Broadway production (click here to read more about that). I sympathize with her desire to sidestep that brand of tragedy porn but I found the new ending to be awkward, pedantic and overly long.  

I missed the powerful ending that dared the audience, particularly the white audience, to confront how deeply systemic racism is ingrained in this country. But an earlier Chicago production with that devastating conclusion was preserved on film by Spike Lee and you can find it on Amazon Prime (click here to watch it). 

I know from recent experience, that streaming isn’t the best way to watch theater but like many theater lovers I remain wary of being in crowded indoor spaces (click here for some other views of that.) So I haven’t yet decided if I’m really ready to give up online viewing and return to live theater full-time.  As they say on TV, stay tuned.