The revival of this 12-year-old English play about a closeted footballer might seem well-timed to take advantage of the heightened interest both in gay athletes (thanks to a certain TV series) and in the world of soccer (coming as it does in the tailwind of this year’s World Cup.) Jason (Matisse Ratron-Neal) and Ade (Terry Bell) start off as 17-year-old striving strikers on the eve of a career-making or -breaking match. But “The Pass” is something of a tease — sexy, twisty, suspenseful, but also downbeat and misleading. The play takes place over twelve years entirely in hotel rooms, and, although it is full of throwaway allusions to soccer (mentions of Ronaldo or “Becks in the States), it doesn’t ultimately have much compelling to say about the sport. It also doesn’t offer insights about closeted gay life, or about celebrity, that we haven’t seen better expressed elsewhere.
The play begins in a hotel room in Bulgaria with Jason wearing nothing but underpants, while his teammate Ade is in the bathroom taking a shower. Their banter is playful, but with a sharp edge. It soon becomes clear that they are competing for the same slot in the Champions League. The play’s title is in part a reference to an argument they have about an athlete’s responsibility to pass the ball if the teammate has a better shot at scoring a goal, rather than hogging it for a chance at personal glory. “The Pass” has a second meaning too, an obvious one: Given how the scene begins in beefcake, it’s hardly a surprise that Jason and Ade end the scene engaging in a, let’s say, heated rivalry. In this play, though, the rivalry abruptly resolves (Ade soon quits the sport) and the heat is moved to a back burner. The play largely becomes Jason’s story.
In the second scene, which occurs seven years later, Jason is in a hotel in Spain. He is rich and famous now, with a wife and kids, but things are not going well for him, and he has invited Lindsey (Ino Badanjak) a woman not his wife (ie a lapdancer), to his suite. There is a twist here, which I won’t spoil. The scene is well-acted but overlong, and, if not completely implausible, it feels unnecessary to show the pressures he is under: “I get money, endorsements, because I have a certain image. People buy shirts with my name on it, that sort of thing. It’s very lucrative. And people are telling stories that cause problems for that image.”
The third and final scene is in a hotel room in England, where he has invited Ade, whom he hasn’t seen since Bulgaria. Their lives have changed – outwardly, Jason is a great success, but it doesn’t take long for us to realize who is the contented one. For reasons I can’t say I understand, they decide to trash the hotel room (kudos to the visual and sound designers, who at least make this entertaining.) They also invite the bellhop (standout Oliver Rowland-Jones) to participate in the mayhem, and in the sort of cruel games that evoked for me a more physically vigorous version of George and Martha’s game playing in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.”. The main difference is there is not enough context to have the tense interactions between Jason and Ade feel like anything much more than theatrics to keep the audience engaged
The Pass
La MaMa through September 4.
Running time: Two hours with no intermission
Tickets: $69 – $99
Written by John Donnelly
Directed by Max Hunter
Scenic design by Seth Byrum, lighting design by Cheyenne Sykes, costume design by Amanda Roberge, sound design by Megan Culley, video design by Dwight Bellisimo, intimacy director Alysia Homminga
Cast: Matisse Ratron-Neal as Jason, Terry Bell as Ade, Ino Badanjak as Lyndsey, and Oliver Rowland-Jones as Harry the bellhop’
