Transition #3

strike. strike. strike. strike.

Lileana Blain-Cruz’s severe, panicky production of Dominique Morisseau’s Pipeline is on my mind.

We are thinking about our severely underfunded, understaffed schools as they are forced to re-open across the country during a pandemic. We are thinking about the unequal burden born by young Black students at these schools, struggling through a system that can feel designed to destroy them. We are thinking about the overwhelming despair we currently feel every day - and, well, Pipeline is nothing if not a despairing play.

Look at this scene transition alone. First we get brutal videos of school violence, blown up on the Mitzi E. Newhouse’s back wall in Hannah Wasileski’s Lortel Award-winning projection design. The videos are overwhelming but, even as they seem to stretch on forever, not desentizing. You feel every blow, and you wish it would stop.

The filmed version of Pipeline seen here is less overwhelming than the effect in the room, where the whole Mitzi space was overtaken by the footage. The characters become tiny specks in the enormity of it all. All their work, all their passion, suddenly feels like nothing framed against a cycle that overwhelms.

Matt Saunders’ set for Pipeline, Lincoln Center Theater, 2017

The projections finally flicker out, but the transitional moment isn’t over. Over the shoulder of Nya (Karen Pittman), the beleaguered teacher at the story’s center, a figure passes stalks past reciting part of Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem We Real Cool. It’s her son, Omari - or at least it’s the same actor (Namir Smallwood). But it’s not Omari. He recites:

We real cool. We

Left school. We

Lurk late. We

Strike straight.

We. We. We. We.

Strike. Strike. Strike. Strike.

Smallwood’s voice shifts on that final repeated word - “Strike, Strike, Strike, Strike” - into an unsettling bark. Nya looks shaken. So are we. The lights fade back up, and reality seeps back in.

The unsettling repetition hits on the pandemic of racist violence we lived with for so many years before we heard the word ‘Covid.’ The weight of a broken system resting on Nya’s shoulders is evident in Karen Pittman’s shaken expression, and literally shaking hands. And the despair, the overwhelming despair - well, it’s inescapable.

Lincoln Center Theater released a statement on Friday committing itself to anti-racism and anti-bias as core values. Within the halls (or Zooms) of their offices, maybe just the release of this statement constituted a breakthrough. But it came in the same week that Ars Nova, Wolly Mammoth and Alley Theatre all released specific progress statements on their anti-racism efforts, following up on similar commitments made on May 31st. So, somewhat further along.

It’s a moment of transition. Time to catch up.