"Ms. Rashad will be hard pressed to ever again top her work here…The script could still use some fine-tuning to make the sucker punch of the second act land with maximum clout. But even as the play stands, you’ll look back and marvel at how Mr. McCraney and this expert production team have set you up. That’s partly the art of Ms. Landau and her top-drawer cast…Ultimately, it’s Ms. Rashad’s deeply felt, expertly shaded Shelah that gives the play its essential emotional continuity."
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"Tina Landau’s production is beautifully assembled; McCraney’s rich, flavorful dialogue rushes out compellingly from the persuasive cast of eight, and snags just when it should. McCraney is a huge talent, and the play is certainly worth seeing. But the realistic family-reunion half has only a tenuous connection with the outrageous misfortunes later on. Shelah may be Job, but 'Head of Passes' offers no God to explain her calamaties. She’s wrestling with her playwright."
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"A startling but awkward new take on Job…Most of the first act passes busily, and often amusingly…The play becomes more and more abstract...McCraney’s flights of poetry are so fluently rendered by Rashad they seem like plainest prose…Unfortunately, this lyricism does not sit very well with a jokey spikiness...Each mode seems to undermine, not deepen, the other...In trying to humanize the great and mysterious parable, McCraney has set himself a challenge surely no playwright could meet."
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"An affecting but uneven saga…McCraney’s dialogue is a potent blend of the plainspoken and poetic...The cast and production, especially the shape-shifting set, impress under direction by Tina Landau. But on the downside, 'Head of Passes' doesn’t sidestep cliches. It can also come across as overwrought and windy. Still, Rashad’s gutsy, go-for-it performance is something to believe in."
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"The play is unwieldy, its epic, elemental developments springing inorganically from the psychological realism of the setup...However, McCraney's distinctive dialogue ensures that the drama remains absorbing, and Landau directs the strong cast with a keen ear for the musical rhythms of black Louisiana speech...Rashad supplies earthy gravitas throughout...Every character is vividly drawn...It's the flaws of the play, not the performances, that diminish its impact."
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"Landau does her best to fill out McCraney's sketch by crafting believable relationships between the actors…Rashad serves as a life raft, rescuing the central story…Landau orchestrates some truly remarkable stagecraft…Unfortunately, the realistic water-filled craters onstage aren't quite enough to distract from the massive holes in McCraney's story. 'Head of Passes' has the potential to be the next great American play, but the author needs to shore up the basics first."
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"Rashad commits herself with abandon...But by the final scene 'Head of Passes' has become a bewildering mish-mash of ideas and styles...It seems to be about nothing but giving a grand-manner actress the workout of her career...McCraney hasn't laid the groundwork for this long, loud burst of emotion, so it feels like a series of calculated effects. If he set out to write a powerful drama pitting a dying woman against her God, what he has ended up with is an overwrought star vehicle."
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"Rashad's immersion within Shelah is riveting, and the rage she wields while waging that battle profoundly chilling in its unvarnished honesty…Her tirade is explosive, harrowing, and cathartic, as only the best theatre can be. Alas, it's only a part of 'Head of Passes,' which otherwise fails to match these stunning heights...Shelah is the sole developed character…But with Rashad at the center of 'Head of Passes,' that part of this unsteady evening is never less than a joy."
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