‘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.

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

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

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

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

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

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‘TIME AND THE CONWAYS’: (left to right) Elizabeth McGovern, Charlotte Parry & Anna Baryshnikov. Photo: Jeremy Daniel

TIME AND THE CONWAYS
Written by J. B. Priestley
Directed by Rebecca Taichman
Through November 26, 2017
American Airlines Theater
227 West 42nd Street
(212-719-1300), www.RoundaboutTheatre.org

By David NouNou

Written and performed on the London stage in 1937, J. B. Priestley uses the basis of time travel to showcase a family’s life and changes. Starting in 1919, the first part of Act 1 shows us the giddy, frivolous lives of an upper-middle-class British family (the Conways) at the end of World War 1.

On this particular night, the Conways are celebrating Kay’s (Charlotte Parry) 21st birthday. Kay is one of six children blessed to Mrs. Conway (Elizabeth McGovern) who is now a widow. Kay wants to be an author/writer and is unsuccessful in her endeavors. Her siblings consist of a doltish older brother, Alan (Gabriel Ebert) who is a clerk in a dead-end job; she has a younger sister, the beauty, Hazel (Anna Camp) who is vapid and only cares about her looks and pleasures; another sister, the Socialist and spinsterly Madge (Brooke Bloom); the youngest sister, the lovely childlike Carol ( Anna Baryshnikov); and the returning soldier and golden boy, Robin (Matthew James Thomas). Tonight, Kay is orchestrating her party and is assigning charade duties with costumes to her mother and siblings for the pleasure of the guests that have been invited.

In the middle of these proceedings, part two of Act 1 comes to view. With the wonderfully designed set by Neil Patel, the current living room fades backward and from the ceiling descends a less ornate version of it and the year is 1938, a year later than when the play was presented. Kay has returned from London to her home by the request of her mother. Kay is a writer for a magazine that interviews movie stars who visit England. She has come home on the day that coincides with her 40th birthday. Also, there are her siblings. In the ensuing 19 years, “time” hasn’t been that good to the Conways. Only Alan, the dolt, has the good sense and serenity to take things as they come and flow with the tide. This upheaval has disastrous consequences for the rest of the siblings. Hazel has married a rich bully, Ernest Beevers (Steven Boyer), who takes vengeance on her and the Conways. Madge has become a spinsterish school headmistress. Robin has become a drunkard, deserted his wife and family, and failed in all his endeavors. Worst of all is Mrs. Conway, who is about to lose her home and her children’s inheritance.

Act II goes back to 1919 to reveal what led to this downfall. Of course, the end of the war has a lot to do with it, due to social economics and the changes that are taking place around the world to which the Conways are totally blithe. The impoverished Beevers, who came to court Hazel. was ridiculed by her and the family. Similarly, Gerald Thornton, the family solicitor (Alfredo Narciso), who was only seen as their employee, now controls the purse strings. The uniqueness of Time and the Conways isn’t just the reversal of fortunes, it’s also about how the frivolous and feckless who look down on people create the monsters that unseat them.

The acting is uneven by mostly everyone. Elizabeth McGovern, as Mrs. Conway, is unconvincing as her younger self in Act I, some of her children look older than her. However, as her older and hardened self of 1938, she is riveting and heartbreaking. Steven Boyer, who was spellbinding in Hand to God, now in a much smaller role, is frightening as the belligerent Beevers who changes from an eager wooer to a maniacal bully to exact revenge is perfect. Charlotte Parry, as Kay, is charming and engaging and it never ceases to amaze me how Gabriel Ebert can play a dolt and be able to steal every scene whether here, in Matilda or Therese Raquin.

Time and The Conways does have a moral to it; frivolity and fecklessness have a price, it’s not all about the fun, parties and wishful dreaming. Pertinent to our current situation, but in reverse, enjoy yourself now, make every minute count, because World War III may be around the corner.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published October 15, 2017
Reviewed at October 14, 2017 press performance.

‘TIME AND THE CONWAYS’: (left to right) Matthew James Thomas, Gabriel Ebert, Anna Baryshnikov. Charlotte Parry, Elizabeth McGovern & Anna Camp. Photo: Jeremy Daniel

‘TIME AND THE CONWAYS’: (left to right) Gabriel Ebert, Anna Baryshnikov, Anna Camp, Elizabeth McGovern & Matthew James Thomas. Photo: Jeremy Daniel

‘TIME AND THE CONWAYS’: (left to right) Matthew James Thomas, Gabriel Ebert, Steven Boyer & Charlotte Parry. Photo: Jeremy Daniel

‘TIME AND THE CONWAYS’: (left to right) Anna Baryshnikov, Charlotte Parry, Matthew James Thomas & Anna Camp. Photo: Jeremy Daniel

‘TIME AND THE CONWAYS’: (left to right) Elizabeth McGovern, Brooke Bloom & Charlotte Parry. Photo: Jeremy Daniel

‘TIME AND THE CONWAYS’: (left to right) Anna Baryshnikov, Charlotte Parry & Anna Camp. Photo: Jeremy Daniel

The post ‘Time and the Conways’: The price of frivolity appeared first on StageZine.

‘THÈRÈSE RAQUIN’: Keira Knightley & Judith Light. Photo: Joan Marcus

THÉRÈSE RAQUIN
Adapted by Helen Edmundson
From the novel by Émile Zola
Directed by Evan Cabnet
Through January 3, 2016
Studio 54
254 West 54th Street
(212-719-1300),www.RoundaboutTheatre.org

By David NouNou

There is certainly something to be said about a Gothic guilt and retribution play. It can be viewed as melodramatic and reeking of moth balls or as a silent movie, but instead of “subtitles,” the actors are actually speaking. I know this sounds oxymoronic because how can a silent movie be a talkie? However, this play is about mood and style; to give you an illustration, picture Lillian Gish in Way Down East, with lots of close-ups and tortured facial expressions by everyone. Had this been 1868, when this play is set, Thérèse Raquin would have been scandalous and shocking, but in 2015, it has to be viewed as a period piece, the style of which contemporary playwrights don’t write anymore.

After all, this is an adaptation of an 1867 Émile Zola novel. You know the pace is going to start very slowly, and as adapted by Helen Edmundson, the dialogue at times is very stilted and cliché. Putting all this aside, amazingly it sustains one’s interest and you go along with it.

Thérèse (Keira Knightly) has been left in the care of her aunt, Madame Raquin (Judith Light), since she was age two, by her seafaring father. She has grown into a young woman and obligingly marries her first cousin, the sickly and loathsome Camille (Gabriel Ebert), man who happens to be the jewel of his mother’s eye. Needless to say, this is not a happy marriage. In fact, Thérèse is absolutely despondent. Camille forces the family to move to Paris from a small village by the Seine for better job opportunities.

In Paris, they live modestly over a notions store which Madame Raquin runs with the aid of the ever-miserable Thérèse. Camille is doing well in his new job at the railway company and one day meets and brings an old friend, Laurent (Matt Ryan) from his old village to reacquaint him with the family. As tiresome as Camille is, Laurent is magnificently handsome and calculating. Naturally this awakens the almost dead Thérèse and they proceed to have the most illicit of love affairs. They are so tangled up in their passions that there is only one way out: Kill Camille.

So far you just saw the setup; the second act is where the action comes in the guise of guilt, voices from the dead, remorse and retribution. Basically you have all the elements of an early melodrama. What makes the play unique is the style in which it is presented. Evan Cabnet, the director, has modulated the pace of the piece with the style of the era. It is a style which American theatergoers are not usually accustomed to. The American style unfolds rather quickly, but the European style, as in Ibsen and Molière plays, has to first set the mood in able to unfold.

Thérèse Raquin is a curious vehicle for Keira Knightly to be making her Broadway debut in. She is one of the great beauties of the screen and to have chosen such a dour character is a bit perplexing. She hardly has anything to do in the first act but show us her tortured soul, and in the second, being riddled with guilt, her character goes into fits of hysteria. You might say poor Thérèse; she never caught a break.

Judith Light is a delight to watch. She plays the doting/grieving mother well, even if her character is mired in clichés. Matt Ryan is handsome and conniving as required, and what woman in her right mind wouldn’t relent to his advances? Let’s put it this way: If this was a silent movie, he wouldn’t be the dastardly villain to whom you would be hissing. That dubious honor would have to go Gabriel Ebert, the toxic odious husband. I was surprised the audience didn’t applaud at his demise, because at my performance the audience en masse was gasping at every turn of event, which reminded me of the silent movie experience.

After all, if a play that can elicit such reactions from an audience, doesn’t that make it unique? Since this is not exactly a revival, it is a new experience; it is unfamiliar to us who haven’t read the novel, so we go along for the melodramatic ride. To add to the mopey milieu, there are some fine sets by Beowulf Boritt—which descend from the ceiling to stage in fluid precision at times. Also worth noting are sound designer Josh Schmidt’s original compositions, many of which sound like arty, ominous intros to French diva Mylène Farmer’s wonderfully outré Europop songs. For Francophiles and those who love the brooding, tragic romance of Continental potboilers, Thérèse Raquin certainly delivers.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published November 4, 2015
Reviewed at press performance on November 3, 2015

‘THÈRÈSE RAQUIN’: Matt Ryan & Keira Knightley. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘THÈRÈSE RAQUIN’: Keira Knightley. Photo: Joan Marcus

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