'Pass Over': 'Godot' visits the block

‘PASS OVER’: Namir Smallwood, Gabriel Ebert & Jon Michael Hill. Photo: Joan Marcus.

PASS OVER
Written by Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu
Directed by Dayna Taymor
Through October 10, 2021
August Wilson Theatre
245 West 52nd Street
(888-985-9421), www PassOverBroadway.com

By David NouNou

One of the many things I was taught as a child was that it was offensive to say or use the “N- word.” Watching a performance in a theater where the word is constantly used—to the point of every other word in this 90-minute play by Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu—is a hard sit-through. However, there is a point to it; that being, who can use the word, and who is not allowed to utter it.

If the premise of this play seems familiar, it’s because it loosely resembles Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. Instead of Didi and Gogo being stuck on a dirt road and a tree, the current two men stuck in place are Moses (Jon Michael Hill) and Kitch (Namir Smallwood), both of whom are conversing on a ghetto street corner with a street lamp. Their conversation consists of “getting out of this place” and listing their “top 10 desires in the promised land,” with every other word or sentence consisting of the N-word.

Interrupting this conversation enters a tall, lanky white man in a white suit with a Luciferian manner known as Mister (Gabriel Ebert). He has lost his way to his mother’s house, bringing her this special basket full of food: everything from collard greens and pinto beans to apple pie, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, champagne, and whatever is on the top 10 list for food comes out of this little picnic hamper. Over the course of time, Mister’s benevolence changes to “Master” and the trouble he feigns by using the start of wrong words and claiming “that’s not what I meant.”

After his missteps, Mister leaves in a huff and takes all the leftover food and drinks in that little hamper, except for a small apple pie which Kitch pilfered. Left alone again and back to the conversation of getting away, passing over to the promised land, and the top 10 list, this time Moses and Kitch are interrupted by Ossifer, a white policeman (Gabriel Ebert), from taking away the apple pie and the language used; the rest is left to the viewer’s interpretation.

The three performances by Jon Michael Hall, Namir Smallwood and Gabriel Ebert are all riveting.

Broadway has been closed since March 2020. I’m not sure if this was the right vehicle to jump-start Broadway’s return. Pass Over pushed its opening from September 12 to August 22, 2021. This was a rushed opening, considering previews started on August 4. Pass Over isn’t so much as reopening Broadway but more like sending the proverbial canary inside the coal mine to see if it is safe to return to Broadway

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published September 12, 2021
Reviewed at September 11, 2021 press performance.