Pass Over (Lincoln Center) NYC Reviews and Tickets

"Despite its grim relevance, 'Pass Over' creates a vivid world of injustice while riffing on earlier ones...This is daring dramaturgy, requiring the utmost in tonal control to keep it from tipping into righteous bathos. Danya Taymor’s thrillingly tense LCT3 production mostly succeeds. Technically, it is ideal...Within this prison, Ms. Nwandu has been careful to particularize and humanize her main characters so that the tragedy is not just theoretical or surreal."
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"An intimate political play that grapples with epic themes and is likely to leave you shaken...Taymor keeps the pace popping, so the moments when everything stops hit hard...She elicits heart-rending performances from Hill and Smallwood...and Ebert is careful that his symbolic characters don’t slip into cliché...Although much of its repartee is quite funny, 'Pass Over' is a tough show. It’s intended to challenge and cause discomfort, and a lot is left to interpretation."
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"The work proves a powerfully imaginative drama that will shake up audiences, instantly tagging the playwright as a significant new voice...'Pass Over' is more effective thematically than as drama. The dialogue at times feels aimless and repetitive...The narrative lurches confusingly, and some of the symbolism and its meanings prove elusive. But there's no denying that the work packs a powerful punch, one that's fully realized in this production, superbly staged by Danya Taymor."
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“A provocative, inflammatory, exquisitely written work — a new masterpiece of modern drama...Provokes the uncomfortable, challenging conversations we need to have as our country grapples with racial bigotry that persists not just in law enforcement but in the very fabric of American culture...Impeccable performances...'Pass Over' urges us to get to the tough business of addressing the racial issues that we're afraid of discussing and then act to end the injustices."
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"The cast of the one-act play, under Danya Taymor's direction, is uniformly strong...Playwright Antoinette Nwandu is an important new voice who has done an especially fine job of capturing the language of the urban streets and making it quite poetic. More importantly, in Moses and Kitch, she has created truly sympathetic characters who are trapped in what Moses explains is a 'mega-four' for life."
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“’While the protagonists emerge as potent symbols of enduring injustice, they’re ultimately less compelling as individuals. For all the tenderness, humor and anguish that Hill and Smallwood mine under Taymor’s sensitive, animated direction, we get little sense of what drives their characters beyond pain and oppression...If 'Pass Over' makes a strong and necessary statement, it proves less conducive to starting a conversation.”
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“There’s a lot to unpack in the 90-minute ‘Pass Over’: slavery allusions, biblical overtones—both of which could use more consideration from director Danya Taymor. But you can also boil Nwandu’s drama down to three simple humane words: Stop killing us. It’s an appeal, a demand, and, sadly, a wish.”
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“One only has to watch the nightly TV news or read a newspaper to be aware of the plight of young black men in America being persecuted and even killed with alarming regularity by Caucasian policeman. While this unfortunate turn in American society can nonetheless feel far removed for many (especially in Manhattan), playwright Antoinette Nwandu forces us to face this phenomenon head on in ‘Pass Over.’”
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“Nwandu is a fearless writer who takes no prisoners. She writes with a laser beam...Nwandu’s skill is supported and enhanced by this ensemble as well as Taymor’s direction...These actors execute their roles both as performers and characters with exquisite precision...The conclusion is a hairpin turn that leads us like a highway pile-up to the exact spot we were avoiding.”
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“Although Nwandu’s ’Pass Over’ is rife with elegant use of subtle devices like allegory, metaphor, and allusion, it is bold agitprop, not shy about making overt claims and accusations...Taymor captures that mood of justified paranoia effectively...Nwandu’s language is lyrical, and delivered with great skill...The play is an urgent call to action...Heavy-handed, but Nwandu suggests that crisis is no time for a delicate hand.”
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“A highly theatrical work, ably directed by Danya Taymor...I had to struggle to overcome my discomfort with the language...It’s a rough, uneven, occasionally muddled piece, but its energy is undeniable.”
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"In Nwandu’s script, Mister/Master comes off more than a little ridiculous. He’s ridiculous on stage, too, but he’s also something else. He’s theatrically arresting. Much of this has to do with Ebert’s charm offensive, as ebullient as it is seemingly oblivious — until it isn’t...Nwandu effectively mixes the profane and the sacred, with the Moses character being the most obvious biblical reference."
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"The most viscerally unsettling and provocative play I have ever seen on stage...A tragic cycle of race, power, privilege, and oppression rippling across time...Nwandu’s text bristles, snaps, and pops with an authentic street sound, giving voice to these black men, ensuring we see and hear them. It’s powerful and potent stuff...A cry for justice that holds a mirror to the face and shakes the conscience to its core."
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"Nwandu draws parallels between histories of persecution and perseverance, all within a freewheeling riff on Samuel Beckett’s 'Waiting for Godot,' sharply directed here by Danya Taymor."
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“Invites comparison with other plays but stands on its own...Deftly directed by Danya Taymor, we’re led to laughter, tears and healthy self-reflection...A plot in which nothing happens, and everything happens...Taymor creates a world crackling with theatricality...That your nerves may be jangled from several surprising plot moments may thrill you. If it is not a perfect play that seeks a balance between bawdy and devastating, this playwright’s voice is nevertheless strong and important."
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"An astonishing, gut-wrenching play, beautifully acted and directed...Taymor has directed this with stunning details. Irony is everywhere in her gripping, vital production...This is one muscular, vital, uncompromising, in-your-face play. Playwright Antoinette Nwandu has written dialogue that sings...Terrific, upsetting, unsettling, smart, angry play."
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