Eddie Ewell (left) is Moses, LeRoy S. Graham III (center) is Kitch, and Adam Roy is Mister in Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu’s Pass Over at Marin Theatre Company. BELOW: Ewell’s Moses transcends his situation. Photos by Kevin Berne.


There are multiple ways to look at Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu’s Pass Over, which is probably why it’s one of the most discussed plays of the last five years.

The play, which has its West Coast premiere at Marin Theatre Company, can be looked at historically. After its Chicago premiere in 2017, the play headed to New York and Lincoln Center with plans for Broadway. Then the pandemic hit, and the country began to roil with protest and calls for change, especially where racial justice and police brutality were concerned. The hope was that as we emerged from a global crisis, that we would also be entering a new era with more focused intent around equality and access. It was into this world that Pass Over became the first play to re-open Broadway.

And then there’s Pass Over in the realm of legacy. Nwandu structures her play much like Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot in which two worn down tramps occupy a wasteland in anticipation of someone coming and something changing. Beckett’s play set the bar for existential exploration – the futility, absurdity, comedy and tragedy of human life – and tested the limits of an audience’s patience for obtuseness and lack of traditional plot. Nwandu also places two men into a wasteland of sorts. This time it’s Moses and Kitch under a streetlamp in some sort of dead-end urban setting. They’re also waiting for something to happen, but their “something” is more specific: they expect they’ll be killed by the police at some point.

It’s a powerful thing to build a contemporary play on a base made of Beckett. There’s a certain familiarity with the lack of specifics and in the sometimes playful, sometimes fearful interaction between the men, but Nwandu charts her own course here. She takes her characters somewhere – keeping in mind one of the characters is named Moses and the Bible, particularly the Book of Exodus, factors largely. Where Nwandu takes this brisk, 85-minute play is spiritual, emotional – even joyful. But because we’re dealing with human beings here, it’s also fraught. Nothing is going to be easy, it seems, and nothing is going to be permanent. Beckett would undoubtedly approve.

Because Pass Over feels so vital and like a major step for American theater, it’s hard to see it as just a play. Nwandu, like Beckett, purposefully keeps many details out of the play, and as a result, it’s easier for audience members to project their own experiences and impressions into the action, which is infused with, among other things, threat and violence and fear. So viewers who have had their own experiences with racial injustice or being marginalized or being brutalized or feeling stuck or hopeless will have very different reactions than those who haven’t. There’s a reason the creative team includes a drama therapist and compassion consultant.

Director Kevin R. Free delivers a straightforward production that lets Nwandu’s play shine. His actors are stellar: Eddie Ewell is Moses and LeRoy S. Graham III is Kitch. They bear the responsibility of conveying a soul-deep connection to one another through the rhythm of their banter (which includes so many repetitions of “damn, nigger” that it begins to feel like song, poetry and even prayer). They do this effectively and will only get better as the run continues.

Playing dual roles of Mister and Ossifer, Adam A. Roy brings the tension of the racist white world onto Moses and Kitch’s block (depicted with spartan elegance by set designer Edward E. Haynes Jr.). This is where Free’s production could stand to turn up the volume so that the final portion of the play, where power and grace come into the mix, feels like more of a contrast. This final portion also feels hemmed in by being a play in a theater, a weird thing to say about a play in a theater. But if the walls were to come down (partially), and the sky become visible, that would feel like where the play is aiming to go more effectively than lighting changes and projections.

The physical production aside, what lingers after the curtain call is the connection between Ewell and Graham and how for their characters, Moses and Kitch, their push-and-pull connection to each other as friends, as brothers, as leader/follower, takes them into something bigger. They may or may not have escaped the block, but they’ve taken a giant step.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu’s Pass Over continues through Feb. 20 at Marin Theatre Company, Tickets are $25-$60. Call 415-388-5208 or visit marintheatre.org.
Marin Theatre Company’s COVID policies are here.

John Gallagher, Jr., (front, center) is Mate in Berkeley Rep’s world-premiere musical, Swept Away. The cast also includes (from left, second row) Cameron Johnson, Taurean Everett, Jacob Keith Watson and Vishal Vaidya; (from left, back row) Adrian Blake Enscoe and Stark Sands. BELOW: (from left) Sands as Big Brother, Wayne Duvall as Captain, Gallagher as Mate and Enscoe as Little Brother. Photos by Kevin Berne/Berkeley Repertory Theatre


When you leave a new musical humming the shipwreck, you know there’s a problem.

The first question hovering over Swept Away, the world-premiere musical at Berkeley Repertory Theatre is why everyone behind it thought that, in the 21st century, the American musical theater canon needed an all-male show. Why choose a story that banishes women from the stage and leaves them only to be mentioned as whores in port or dear, sweet Melody Anne back home on the farm. The second is why re-purpose great songs from the Avett Brothers’ impressive catalogue in service of a cliché-ridden story that ends up being about four white guys in a lifeboat.

The impulse to turn songs by Scott and Seth Avett, who have released album after album of rich, melodious music over the last two decades, into some sort of theatrical experience is completely understandable. Their brand of folk-Americana-rock is humorous, dark, beautiful and full of interesting stories. The more than a dozen Avett songs incorporated into Swept Away are not the problem. As long as the men of the cast are singing songs like “Go to Sleep,” “Swept Away” and “Murder in the City,” all is well. The vibrant adaptations of the songs for the stage by Chris Miller and Brian Usifer are rousingly performed by the band under the direction of Julie Wolf and Sean Kana (both credited as music director).

If the performers just sang the songs and didn’t bother with the book by John Logan, Swept Away would be thoroughly enjoyable. Unfortunately, the songs are part of meager story about a late 19th-century whaling ship. There’s a stern captain (Wayne Duvall) who bemoans the loss of his way of life because people don’t need whale oil now that they have paraffin and kerosene. It’s not clear if we’re supposed to feel bad for a guy whose speech basically sounds like, “Damn that kerosene! I want to kill more whales!”

And then there are the neophyte sailors joining the crew. Little Brother (Adrian Blake Enscoe) has run away from his hard life on a hard farm surrounded by hard people. He wants to live life, dammit, not stare at the ass end of a mule. Big Brother (Stark Sands) couldn’t let his little brother run away unsupervised, so the young men set out on an adventure, with Big Brother certain that Little Brother will soon see the error of his ways and come home to family and church (and the aforementioned sweet Melody Anne).

The fourth main character, played by Tony-winner John Gallagher Jr., known only as Mate, represents every hackneyed image of a sailor you can dredge up. He’s seen it all, done it all, killed it all, fucked it all and he’s here to tell you that he’s got a knife and he’s a menace. Gallagher, although an engaging singer, is miscast. He conjures about as much menace as a labradoodle puppy.

While on the ship, the show is buoyed by a terrific ensemble that includes Taurean Everett, Cameron Johnson, Vishal Vaidya and Jacob Keith Watson. They sing, they dance (a bit), they tie ropes. Their shining moment is the shipwreck – a dazzling bit of stagecraft helmed by director Michael Mayer. This stunning moment is a combination of slow-motion choreography by David Neumann, set design by Rachel Hauck, lights by Kevin Adams and sound by Kai Harada. This scene also serves, sadly, as the end of the ensemble.

The action then shifts to a lifeboat and the intense discussions about how the men might survive. Though the whole show is only 90 minutes, the lifeboat section feels like hours. Then there’s a wholly unearned ending filled with salvation for characters who have never felt anything but hollow.

I can only speak for myself here, but I had no interest in any aspect of Logan’s story. That’s hugely disappointing because the Avett Brothers’ songs deserve better. They don’t serve the story well here, and the wearisome story certainly doesn’t support them. You might say it’s all a bit of a shipwreck.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Swept Away continues through March 6 at Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Peets Theatre, 2025 Addison St., Berkeley. Tickets are $44-$180 (subject to change). Call 510-647-2949 or visit berkeleyrep.org.
Berkeley Rep’s Covid information is here.

Enjoy this playlist of songs from Swept Away as originally performed by the Avett Brothers

This Theater Dogs website has been going since August 1, 2006, making it a solid 15 years’ worth of theater news, reviews and assorted other stuff that captured my attention. If you’re a longtime reader, thank you. If this is your first time, welcome. I’m thrilled that a) this site is still here and b) that I’m still here. As they constantly say on The Great, Huzzah.

After the long pause of the pandemic, it’s beyond wonderful to be back in theaters with shows and audiences and the excitement of live theater. During the COVID lull, I spiffed up Theater Dogs a bit (thank you to those who noticed and commented), and the most recent addition is an original piece of art commissioned for the website that thrills me for a number of reasons.

The incredible textile artist Keeli McClintick has created the quilt-like banner for Theater Dogs that replicates the excitement of settling into your theater seat anticipating the rise of that beautiful red curtain. I urge you to check out Ms. McClintick’s gorgeous work on Instagram: @keelimcclintickstudios. These are not your granny’s quilts.

The inclusion of an original Keeli McClintick across the top of this website also thrills me because Ms. McClintick is an artist whom I’ve admired for a number of years. I won’t say how many exactly, but let’s just say since I was born. We are first cousins, and in addition to being constantly in awe of her mad skills and rampant creativity, she also happens to be one of my favorite people on this or any other planet.

Thank you, Keeli. And now, curtain up…