THEATER REVIEW: ‘Pass Over’ plays at Chester Theatre Company through August 7

I am seldom at a loss for words. Tonight, I am exactly that. Chester Theatre Company’s third play of the season has left me speechless. On the long drive home I found myself thinking about—no, pondering—the play I had just seen: “Pass Over” by Antoinette Nwandu which had its debut at Steppenwolf Theater Company in Chicago in 2018. Rewritten, with a new ending, it was the first play to open in New York after the COVID-19 pandemic. It is clearly a significant piece of drama. It deals with two men, relatively young, living on the city streets, homeless, family-free, out-of-work, driven to pointless conversation while they contemplate nothing important or relevant to their futures. Moses and Kitch live for the day they inhabit and litte else. Every day they are hassled by the police who ultimately leave them alone. Occasionally one confronts them, and they manage to survive the intimidation of such encounters. One day they meet a white man, casually dressed in shorts who has lost his way and in a most peculiar way invites them to partake in a picnic he has designed for his mother. The meeting is, to say the least, disconcerting for both the Black men. Later they are assaulted by a cop who is suddenly overtaken by what appears to be a psychological fit. When, on another day, the white man appears again one of the three men winds up dead. End, more or less, of the play.

I know there’s a message in this; I’m just not sure what it is. People are not treated fairly by other people. That is sure. Black men are abused and, when treated in a way that is not usual, it is hard for them to give in to the emotional security they are offered. Strange to say I know a great many Black men who have not been treated the way Moses and Kitch have been in this play. The men I have known have had educations, jobs, careers in law, the arts, business, and have lived very successful, happy lives with families and with friends of all kinds. While I know and acknowledge that there are just as many men who do live like Moses and Kitch, this play seems to draw on the concept that all Black men are mistreated, are ignored by the system, are abused and threatened and feared. The picture here, in this play, is distorted and very one-sided. It cannot be denied that these men do exist. I would never argue with that, but the themes examined in this play are truly disturbing.

Maybe we need to be disturbed, and that is what this play was created to do. If so, it works. With the three very talented actors in it, the play works very well. Kayodè Soyemi is brilliant as Moses. Given the name of a leader of his people, Soyemi runs away with the play, leading the excellent Austin B. Sasser through the adventures on a street corner that both characters live through. The cop who harasses them, called Ossifer, is very well portrayed by James Barry, who also plays Mister, the picnic providing nutcase of a white man, equally well played. His character almost makes this play into a high comedy of a sort. The ending of the play prompts gasps of surprise and lets the confusions rise to extreme heights. There is no other play like this one, I am sure.

Excellent production values grace director Christina Franklin’s perfect vision. Nadir Bey has created a city environment that screams slum central, and Sarafina Bush’s costumes celebrate each of the characters to the maximum. The lighting design by Madeleine Hebert sets and maintains the moods of the moments. James McNamara’s sound design couldn’t be better. Kelsey Rainwater’s fight direction helps to preserve the play’s reality. Applause to stage manager Queen Chevy for calling what seemed a perfect show on opening night; there was a lot to keep in line in a short span of time.

I still don’t know what to make of this play. Did I like it? Did I not? What’s it telling me? I should see it again, knowing what I now know, to see if it makes more sense to me on a second viewing. Thankfully I have had such a good production to start me on that journey.

“Pass Over” plays at the Town Hall Theatre, in Chester, Mass. through August 7. For information and tickets call 413-354-7771 or go to the theater’s website.