THE STORY: A fantasia inspired by E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India, PASSAGE is set in the fictional Country X, which is a neocolonial client of Country Y. B, a local doctor, and F, an expat teacher, begin to forge a friendship that is challenged after a fateful trip to a local attraction. A meditation on how power imbalances affect personal and interpersonal dynamics across a spectrum of situations, the play allows a director wide latitude in casting the roles by race, ethnicity, and gender, with different casting choices highlighting different societal structures.
“Nationalist rage and resentment are taken to a quiet place in Christopher Chen’s PASSAGE… Voices are rarely raised in this gentle, tutorial exploration of xenophobia from the Obie Award-winning author of
Caught… [PASSAGE is] guaranteed to raise your heart rate.” —The New York Times.
“Christopher Chen’s tense, fascinating PASSAGE is a delicate walk through a field of landmines… To Chen’s great credit, PASSAGE struggles not to prescribe… It tries to stay true to its title, fashioning itself as a long dark corridor through which we’re all stepping together—tentatively, fearfully, hopefully—without a light or a door yet in sight.” —New York Magazine.
“…a real and affecting drama…PASSAGE dares to raise questions that make the audience profoundly uncomfortable, but simultaneously creates a welcoming space to which everyone is invited. Unashamedly political yet deeply humane, it’s a difficult journey that is well worth the trouble.” —Time Out New York.
