Work of scattered focus might just improve as season kicks on
The Pass
Reginald Theatre, Seymour Centre
★★½ stars
The consequences of ruthless ambition and stunted emotions are on full display in The Pass, John Donnelly’s play spanning 12 years in the life of two young men on the brink of athletic success.
Jason (Ben Chapple) and Ade (Deng Deng) are each up for a contract on a professional soccer team. In a shared hotel room, where anxiety and tension keeps them awake, they reach out for each other: wrestling, bickering, joking. How that night ends will set the course of their lives.
Jason (Ben Chapple) and Ade (Deng Deng) pass the hours in their motel room.Credit:Becky Mathews
This is a portrait of tortured people, mind games and the unbearable loneliness of denying your true self. Here, directed by Ed Wightman for the Seymour Centre and the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, the play feels a little tortured itself.
It’s a work obsessed with its own cleverness but has a habit of repeating without breaking new ground, and it relies on raw charisma to add nuance to the plot – a big ask for the whole company.
The play’s three scenes have a scattered focus here when they instead need a laser-like precision. British accents are unceremoniously dropped when emotions get trickier to convey, and on opening night, the unwise and unsafe decision to use real glass props onstage ends in cast injury and a temporary show stoppage (the actor, we are thankfully informed as we return to the auditorium, is fine).
Cassie Howarth appears during the pivotal mid-point of the play.Credit:Becky Mathews
It’s no wonder the play feels off-kilter, thrown by the shock of injury and interruption, and this production could still find its groove. There are moments that suggest a stronger season: Chapple has gritted-teeth stamina as Jason, who spends the most time onstage; and Deng is a much-needed grounding presence. These two actors will probably figure out how to hold their own against each other.
Cassie Howarth nimbly manages the multiple twists in her character arc during the pivotal mid-point of the play (this scene also contains Wightman’s best directing work). But the breath of fresh air in this production is Tom Rodgers, making his Sydney theatre debut as an up-for-anything hotel worker. The play breathes easier when he arrives on stage.
By the end of the play, this production finds its heart – its scarred, scared vulnerability. It arrives late, but it’s a welcome presence. If that heartbeat can thrum in the background from the beginning, offering a necessary counterpoint to the script’s bluster, this production will find its way forward.
Ends March 6.