PASS OVER

DRAMATURGY NOTE

SETTING now. right now

but also 1855

but also 13th century BCE

The Dramaturgy team functions to provide background information as it pertains to the subject matter of a play.  For the purposes of Pass Over, we dedicated the first half of the semester to background research on themes and concepts in our BIPOC oriented space.  This general research included background on the Black experience in the United States and on the three time periods in which this play is set: ancient Egypt, U.S. antebellum, and modern day.  We also studied texts affiliated with this play, such as the Bible and Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.  This allowed the ensemble to come into the world(s) in which our characters live alongside our own identities as individuals as well as a group, and better understand the thoughts, ambitions and backgrounds Moses, Kitch, and Mister/Ossifer may have.  

To ensure that this text was approached in a safe, appropriate, and accommodating manner, we set specific procedures for our work environment and reviewed the pillars of intimacy:  

Context - before choreography or conversation must understand the narrative/themes of the story

Consent - must confirm willing and enthusiastic consent form all parties involved

Choreography - detailed account of all the work that is done

Closure - ritual to signify ending of work.

Having laid the groundwork for our process, we began to dissect the material of the text itself. In an effort to contextualize Pass Over in the expansive world of Black artists and characters in popular media, we tracked portrayals of the Black community in film throughout history.  From the negative early depictions of Black characters as incompetent or hyper-sexualized, to the era of Blacksploitation films, until the Black film Renaissance, we discussed the consequences that these varying portrayals have in the real world.  

    Pass Over contributes to this canon by exploring the cyclical nature of institutionalized and systemic violence perpetrated against Black Americans. In order to further understand the depth and gravity of this history, we utilized Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow to assess the various periods in which this violence became codified, starting with the institution of slavery and moving through the Jim Crow laws of reconstruction, Nixon era criminalization, Reagan’s War on Drugs, and Clintion’s crime bill. Systems and legislation which all have tangible repercussions even today: namely the oppression of BIPOC communities through the imposition of the prison industrial complex. Reflecting on these events, we discussed how we view intergenerational trauma and its impact on the way relationships are formed.   In the context of Pass Over,  intergenerational trauma burdens Kitch and Moses, who have grown up in a country where the besiegement of slavery, police brutality, and systemic racism haunt them.  This appears in the play when Moses and Kitch have difficulties with vulnerability and showing love to one another, which in turn bleeds into the ways they interact with Mister and Ossifer.  

    In order to translate these ideas into theatrical reality, we looked to adjacent texts and artwork for inspiration. In an interview, Antoinette Nwandu spoke about how Kitch and Moses were “standing on the sedimented layers of history and that those identity markers were rising up into them and through them.”  We sought to explore this concept through learning about the history of music sampling in the Black community. Nwandu also cites Waiting for Godot as a source of inspiration for Pass Over. Examining Beckett’s famous 1953 play, we were able to gain a deeper understanding of the cyclical structure and tragicomic tone employed by Nwandu in the play. Similarly, we found guidance in the Exodus story, comparing the apple pie from the picnic scene to the lamb’s blood over the door during the holiday of Passover and the way it may protect our lead characters when it is present, and the way it can no longer protect them when it is gone.  We also identified the occurances of the seven plagues as they manifest themselves in the play, especially as they escalate towards the end of the play, just as they do in Exodus. This research extended not only to the themes of the play, but to its prose as well.  Pass Over contains very little punctuation and capitalization, so we looked at the work of Victoria Chang, who is known for her lack of punctuation and relies heavily on enjambment and form.  We also looked at the poetry of Pablo Neruda to study the poetic expression of love, as well as the works of Danez Smith, Terrance Hayes, and Toni Morrison to shed light on the Black experience.  

Utilizing the conventions and time afforded by the structure of independent study, we were able to research and explore the intricate layers of this text; pulling at the thread of many of its literary and historical allusions to understand the complex ideas Nwandu introduces. Taking place simultaneously in three time periods and drawing upon two massive theatrical and religious texts, Pass Over  does not just concern the day in the life of these two young men, but centuries of history. As with any theatrical work, we are tasked with empathizing with our protagonists and to deeply examine the circumstances of their reality. But the genius of Pass Over is that we begin to see the ways in which history has shaped that reality.  Due to the compelling narrative of this play, we find ourselves wrapped in its context in reality, finding pieces of it in our world.  Coming out of this process, we as an ensemble have learned extensively about the deeply intertwined nature of the past as it flows into all things present.  It is our mission to continue our lives with this understanding; to allow it to shape us; to act with intention and pride, with the whole of history at our backs whisking us forward into the future.

-Nayri Carman, Chris Jensen, and Sophie Thurschwell, Dramaturgy Team, January 2021