‘Pass Over’ Covers Modern Issues In A Blend Of The Bible And ‘Waiting For Godot’

Called “Pass Over,” it combines elements of existential drama with the Bible as it looks at two young Black men dreaming of a better tomorrow in a world of police violence.

I think that is one of the main gestures of the late 20th and early 21st century.

LUNDEN: And “Pass Over” is a play that absolutely feels right now, even though Nwandu began writing it after Trayvon Martin was killed in 2012.

NWANDU: And so I’m sitting here as an artist, and I’m saying, on one hand, I’ve got the Bible.

LUNDEN: So Nwandu samples liberally from both the Bible and “Waiting For Godot.” In that play, two tramps pass time on a blank stage waiting for a character who never comes.

And we gonna stand there like – like chosen, like this world ain’t never seen.

LUNDEN: The cast says it was one thing to do the play a few years ago, but now, in the midst of the pandemic and after the death of George Floyd, their perspective has changed.

GABRIEL EBERT: When we were doing it the first time, there seemed to be a sort of shock amongst white Americans, especially liberal progressive white Americans, that, how are these things still happening? And we wanted to wake up the audience.

NWANDU: I can’t make an ending that I can’t see in my mind.

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