In the aftermath of Charlottesville, Pittsburgh, and Poway, Fringe play Passing finds its voice

Passing had an unusually long gestation period. The idea for a play about the Holocaust first came to me in 2010. But, as is often the case, the story in my head did not translate well to the page, let alone to the stage. There were certain inescapable problems with the plot which I was unable to solve at the time. The premise was a good one, but a good premise does not always make for a good script. I placed the idea on the back burner.

Meanwhile, I moved on to my next project, and the one after that, and the one after that. I also did some research on WWII and the Holocaust, and allowed the idea to simmer in the burbling cauldron of my subconscious. Every once in a while I’d remove the lid from the pot, give it a stir, and take a little taste, but the flavor always seemed off. Although I never quite gave up on the idea, I accepted that it would likely never see the light of day. This is the fate of a great many ideas.

Then one night, as I lay in bed reading, I was suddenly struck by a solution to the central problem with my story. Interestingly enough, it involved removing all of the male characters. I jumped out of bed, ran to the computer, and jotted down some notes. Three days later I had a completed draft which nearly wrote itself, and required only minor subsequent revisions.

I presented the piece at the Kennedy Center’s Page-to-Stage Festival in 2017, but because it only ran for about 35 minutes, I paired it on a double bill with another short piece entitled Waiting (a companion to Beckett’s Waiting for Godot). Both pieces were well received, but neither of them was sufficient in length to warrant a full production. Pairing the two in a reading was a much different prospect than mounting both of them together on the stage. So I stuck them on my special dust-gathering shelf where they could molder in peace.

[adsanity_rotating align=”aligncenter” time=”10″ group_id=”1455″ /]

I was, at that time, working on a full-length comedy, entitled A Theist, which dealt with the question of whether or not God exists. (What could be funnier?) My plan was to bring A Theist to the 2018 Capital Fringe. I sent in my application, paid the participation fee, started on pre-production work, and then… And then, in March, I underwent quintuple bypass surgery. Obviously the Fringe was out. I contacted them and they were very gracious about the whole thing; they encouraged me to apply again for 2019.

The nice thing about my surgery was hearing so many people describe me as young. Considering how invasive open heart surgery is, my recovery was surprisingly rapid. Within seven weeks I was back at work, and in less than six months I had resumed all normal activity.

And then the Tree of Life massacre took place in Pittsburgh. This was the moment at which I knew I had to find a way to bring Passing to the stage.

I did not want to simply pad the existing script so, instead, I extended it, bringing a story which took place in 1945 and 1988 into the present day. I added another scene which started off as denouement but ended up becoming the climax of the play.

The title itself – Passing – kept acquiring more and more meanings. Most of these will be evident to those who see the play. But the events in Pittsburgh revealed yet one more very personal meaning. I had never really identified strongly with my Jewish background. After my Bar Mitzvah, at the age of 13, I gave up on being a practicing Jew. I spent most of my life as an agnostic, and actually identified as a Christian for six years (which is another story for another day). But in the wake of the Tree of Life shootings I suddenly understood that I had been passing. Passing as a white man. Walking down the street, going to the store, taking in a show, and sucking up all that wonderful, delicious white privilege, without ever giving it a second thought. I used to joke that I was Jewish only to the extent that Nazis would kill me. Suddenly that joke wasn’t funny anymore. It was deadly serious.

After Charlottesville, Pittsburgh, and now Poway, California, it has become increasingly clear that the probability of a second Holocaust strays further and further from zero with each passing day. We’re seeing the makings of one in the detention camps which have sprung up along our southern border. We’re seeing it in the increasingly callous, bigoted rhetoric of our leadership. We’re seeing it in the resurgence of white nationalism, erupting like a cancer onto the surface of our society. If there were ever a time for a play such as Passing, this is the very moment itself.

John Sowalsky was born in Washington, DC and has spent most of his life in Montgomery County, MD. He is a graduate of Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, MD, and studied cultural anthropology at Marlboro College and music composition at Catholic University. His writing has encompassed stage plays, short stories, verse, essays, technical writing, and blogging. He has been producing his own plays since 2008, and this will be his sixth Fringe.