'The Pass' Off-Broadway review — soccer drama keeps moving the goalposts

Read our review of The Pass off Broadway, the U.S.-premiere production of John Donnelly's 2014 drama, running at La MaMa through September 4 only.

Summary

• The Pass follows two elite soccer players over the course of 12 years in three different hotel rooms
• The show fails to sustain its dramatic momentum throughout despite individual standout performances from actors including Ino Badanjak
• The show is recommended for fans of sports dramas and followers of the World Cup and other recent major soccer moments in pop culture

Something is about to happen. That’s the feeling conjured by The Pass, John Donnelly’s play now running at La MaMa. You perch on the edge of your seat, waiting for that final confrontation, that all-consuming blowout that makes the protagonist want to throw himself out the hotel room window. The Pass builds and builds, but the play falls apart before it can burst.

Set across three different hotel rooms, The Pass premiered in 2014 at London’s Royal Court Theatre. The soccer drama follows two young rising stars, Jason (Matisse Ratron-Neal) and the more anxious and eager Ade (Terry Bell), who flails about the stage in a flurry of long limbs, envisioning his game plays and dancing and refusing to sit still. They’re both trying a little too hard to be bros, both harboring feelings of attraction and intimidation, both desperate to show they’re not desperate. In this first extended sequence of youth, we get a real feel for these friends, what they can get away with and what crosses the line. Though there’s a lot of exposition, and the English accents are a bit cartoonish (no dialect coach is credited), we at least know what’s at stake.

When the play jumps forward, however, Ade is gone, and this is perhaps Donnelly's biggest disservice to his script. Everything we learn about him later is filtered through Jason: How Jason sees Ade, what he’s heard about him as they grew apart, how Ade does or doesn’t want to impress him now. Lyndsey (Ino Badanjak), Ade’s second-scene replacement, is the strongest performer, a breath of fresh feminine air in a show about how boys will be boys. (Badanjak’s accent also doesn’t sound like a caricature of herself.) This section of the show is the strongest, with Jason and Lyndsey ceding and regaining power in a clever, calculated game of chicken; the revelations threaten to propel the plot into something memorably intriguing. When the lights go down and Lyndsey leaves the hotel room, however, she takes all the momentum with her.

The final third of director/producer Max Hunter’s production threatens to go further, then draws itself back like a turtle into its shell. Watching Ratron-Neal do a Russell Brand impression as Jason sinks his teeth into addiction gets tiring after yet another sequence of flashing lights and mimed shots. Once again, we meet a new character, a young and adventurous bellboy named Harry (Oliver Rowland-Jones), and once again, he takes the energy with him when he leaves the stage.

By the time Jason and Ade have their second delayed dramatic confrontation, the play is folding in on itself. Jason’s confessions exist only to force an ending, sounding out-of-character from the mouth of a man who only ever deflects and defends. We’re left with no reason to believe anything either character says, to like them, or even to pity them. They made their choices as teenagers, just as now, but the fallout isn’t nearly as interesting as it might have been. That’s the problem with wondering how your life would’ve turned out if you’d made different choices: You will never be satisfied, and you will only go in circles.

The Pass summary

The Pass begins with elite teenage football (soccer) players Jason and Ade preparing for their first big international game in Bulgaria. In a hotel room the night before the game, the two friends banter, anxiously discuss their futures, and roughhouse, leading to a more intimate encounter than either anticipated.

Years later, Jason finds himself in another hotel room with a talkative dancer who’s heard rumors swirling about him, and she finds they both have something to prove. Then, 12 years after the events of the first scene, Jason and Ade reunite in yet another hotel room, where drugged antics lead to emotional confessions.

What to expect at The Pass

The Pass runs approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes without an intermission. Scenic designer Seth Byrum’s hotel room is centered in the middle of the Ellen Stewart Theatre, with audiences in raked seating on either side. This design choice allows audience members to see one another across the set. Your view of certain scenic details, like the hotel room’s bathroom and balcony, may vary based on your seat. In between scenes, a deck crew dressed as hotel bellhops leads well-choreographed set changes.

The Pass features discussions of homophobia, transphobia, racism, sexual harassment, misogyny, bullying and hazing, xenophobia, addiction, sex work, and revenge porn. The show features brief male nudity and simulated sexual scenarios. The Pass also briefly depicts a white character engaging in Blackface. The final scene includes flashing lights.

What audiences are saying about The Pass

Audiences have been sharing mixed to positive responses to The Pass off Broadway. Show-Score displays a 75% audience approval rating, aggregated from 13 reviews from theatregoers.

• Mezzanine user Stephen Kearley of The BroadGAYS writes that the play “becomes much stronger once it moves beyond the endless football banter and starts focusing on the people underneath all that performance.”
• Show-Score user Elisa 9119 praises Ratron-Neal and Bell for “vividly convey[ing] denial and fear of vulnerability in a truly compelling story.”
• Mezzanine user sashur says they “wish [The Pass] had gotten a million times crazier than it did.”

Read more audience reviews of The Pass on Show-Score.

Who should see The Pass

• Chicago theatre fans will recognize leading actor Terry Bell, a veteran of the Goodman Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, and the Jeff Award-winning production of Berlin at the Court Theatre.
• The Pass director Max Hunter also staged and starred in a 2021 revival of the beloved musical [title of show] with his company Bridge Production Group.
• If you fell in love with soccer during the World Cup, or you miss seeing testosterone-twinged teammate camaraderie, The Pass is for you.

Learn more about The Pass off Broadway

The Pass has had a long life since its 2014 London premiere, including a 2016 film adaptation, leading one to ask the age-old question, “Why this play now?” Homoerotic sports stories are having a moment, and that pop culture fervor combined with World Cup fever seems to be enough to propel The Pass stateside, but the play fails to sustain its own dramatic drive.

Learn more and get The Pass tickets on New York Theatre Guide. The Pass is at La MaMa through September 4.

Photo credit: The Pass off Broadway. (Photos by Andy Henderson)