The set for “Pass Over,” Springfield Contemporary Theatre’s latest production, is very simple: A streetlight, a parking meter and a tire alongside a cinder block, a hubcap and a trashcan. The story that unfolds around the recreated street corner is far more complex.
“In (playwright Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu’s) author’s notes she says, ‘The time of the play is right now. But also 1850. But also 13th century BCE,’” said Jon Herbert, the show’s director. “So it’s three different layers of time that are happening.”
Herbert’s three actors are also operating in three different layers. There’s Mikil Hernandez and Czyz Bledsoe playing Moses and Kitch, and Jonathan Newman playing Mister and Occifer.
“Moses is not only this young man on the streets, he’s also quite literally Moses of 13th century BCE and he’s a slave driver in 1850,” Newman said. “Kitch, his friend and surrogate little brother, is a young brother on the streets, but he’s also a slave in 1850 and he’s one of the chosen in the 13th century BCE.
“And you have these two white characters, played by one actor, Mister and Occifer. Occifer is a soldier in the Roman army, but he’s also a slave patroller and he’s also a cop in present day. (Newman) also plays another character, Mister, who is a man who is kind of scared and lost in this part of town, but also Pharaoh’s son, but also a plantation owner. There’s a lot happening.”
You can see all of those things happen at the Historic Fox Theatre on Park Central Square July 21-Aug. 6. Tickets for the show are on sale now. This is the southwest Missouri premiere of “Pass Over,” which contains adult language and content.
Drawing from ‘Waiting for Godot' and the biblical Exodus story
“Pass Over” is not nearly as confusing as it might sound, at least not with Herbert’s direction and strong work from Hernandez, Bledsoe and Newman.
“It’s a difficult thing to describe briefly, but ultimately it is a really simple story and a simple comment on a situation that is as old as our nation,” Herbert said. “And that is a story of black people getting killed every time they try to do something with themselves.
“You see people rising above the station that they were sort of forced into out of slavery. Every time that starts to happen, a neighborhood is destroyed, or young black potential is snuffed out by the police. And it’s frustrating and it’s historic. It’s an awful story, but it’s a simple one. These two guys want to get off the streets that are patrolled by a cop that kills people when they try to get off the streets.”
To tell the story, Nwandu draws from two seemingly disparate stories: Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” and the biblical Exodus story. But instead of Beckett’s two vagabonds waiting for someone who never arrives, you have Nwandu’s two young, black men trying to escape from hardship.
Actors challenged to go into difficult spaces
The script asks the actors to go into difficult spaces. It’s a challenge the cast has been up to. Hernandez, a stage veteran who has appeared in SCT productions like “Skeleton Crew” and “A Raisin in the Sun,” draws on his own life experiences.
“My background — not trying to get too much into it — is sort of the same thing as Moses and Kitch,” Hernandez said. “I had a roof over my head but dealt with the hardships of not only being Hispanic but also being African American. I’ve dealt with racism, prejudice, a couple of run-ins with the police. So it’s all sort of the same things. I’m just able to draw from my background and put it into Moses.”
Newman, meanwhile, has to embody racist characters, which Herbert said requires a lot of bravery.
“He has to use some pretty hardcore racial slurs pretty often and he’s got to play just a really, really awful person and do it publicly,” Herbert said. “And for Mikil and Czyz, they have to go to that place of fear and anger and deep, deep sadness. They sort of take on the existential crisis of all of their ancestors.
“I told them there’s a point where they’re crying out on stage and having a tantrum. We were talking about what that moment is like and it’s not just their frustration, it’s the frustration of every black person since the first one who came off a boat with their experience in America. And it’s intense. That’s a lot to ask a person to go there, to face the kinds of dangers and the insults and the torments that these characters face, and to really live that on stage because they’re acting. They’re not pretending. They’re living that for a period on stage and that can be really taxing.”
Riding an emotional roller coaster
And yet somehow, “Pass Over” manages to be funny. Herbert laughs in amazement at how much humor exists in the script and in the performances of his cast, which he calls the best cast in the world.
“There are these incredible beats where (Nwandu) takes you on an emotional roller coaster,” Herbert said. “You’re laughing one minute, you’re deeply sad the next. You’re terrified the next minute, then you’re shocked and horrified. And there are all these spaces in between these beats where there’s just this great ability for this play to really, really breathe.”
Bledose, making his stage debut at the age of 21, loves those breaths built into the script.
“The pauses in between certain lines really make you think,” he said. “It’s quiet. A lot of stuff happens really fast, then it just stops. It gets your heart racing. I think a lot of people are going to be caught off guard with a lot of the things we do. There’s a suspense in it.”
Herbert directed “Kill Move Paradise” for Springfield Contemporary Theatre, another powerful production, in the fall of 2022. He said when that play closed, he heard from many people who were disappointed they missed out on seeing it. He has advice for those people.
“Get your tickets now, because the same thing is going to happen with this show,” Herbert said. “It’s ultimately deeply impactful and very dramatic, but it is a funny, funny play and these actors are so incredible in these roles. It’s not one to miss.”
Want to go?
What: Springfield Contemporary Theatre’s “Pass Over”
When: July 21-23 and 27-30, Aug. 3-6; Evenings at 7:30 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m.
Where: The Historic Fox Theatre, 157 Park Central Square
Tickets: Adults $32, Seniors/Students $29; Opening Night $27; Student Rush $10; Pay What You Can Thursdays
For more information: Call 417-831-8001 or visit the Springfield Contemporary Theatre website.
