Seret Scott, Claudia Logan, Seven F.B. Duncombe, Julian Robertson, CG, and Will Cobbs Photo by Marc J. Franklin

In 2018, Lincoln Center presented Pass Over, Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu's riff on Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, and Six Characters seems to be a companion piece of sorts. There is even a visual allusion to Pass Over in the second-act scenic design by Dustin Wills (who also directs). Both plays reveal the lingering and corrosive effects of slavery, and Howze explicitly points to its vestiges in colloquial language, Aristotelian philosophy, and mainstream theatre offerings.

In the first act, we meet the six characters, who include a fascistic theatre director (Julian Robertson, who does a spot-on Mussolini impression), sporting fashions from Milan and peppering his speech with Italian phrases and exclamations. Character 2 (all the characters are indicated in the program by their number in the order of their appearance) is Sassy (Claudia Logan), who is overly eager to break into the world of live theatre. A maternal and overworked custodian (Seret Scott, delivering a poignant performance) becomes central to the emerging company, as does a man off the street, who assumes the role of Police (Will Cobbs). A nonbinary participant, Newman (CG), is eager to learn the craft of acting and becomes the mentee to the director.

The final character is an antebellum slave (Seven F.B. Duncombe, a standout), who has sent herself to freedom through the mails in a wooden box (à la nineteenth-century fugitive and early performance artist Henry Box Brown) and brings along a script of abolitionist William Wells Brown's 1858 play, The Escape; or, A Leap for Freedom .

These anarchic characters, unlike Pirandello's wayward searchers, immediately reject the notion of a writer/director to control their stories, so they set out to write their narratives themselves. In the second act, which merges hyperrealism with surrealistic elements, the characters pair off and their personal accounts and relationships with other characters come into focus. (The design elements including Wills's full-of-surprises sets, Montana Levi Blanco's appropriately cross-period costumes, Masha Tsimring's theatricalized and exposed lighting, and Christopher Darbassie's eclectic sound design heighten the feeling of a world gone out of whack.)

Howze presents many provocative quandaries about race, theatre, and authoritarianism, but the result is more academic than dramatic. For a play that mocks the controlling figure of the director, ironically, the production would benefit from more cohesiveness and a singular vision. The hardworking cast blusters and storms, but their characters remain merely outlines in the first half.

Additionally, prior to the performance, the audience had been teased that, if willing, they may be active participants in the unfolding of the events. However, except for the inclusion of an obvious plant and some fourth-wall-breaking winking and castigating, we are generally kept at an arm's distance throughout.

As a result, the satire does not sufficiently land because we do not have an emotional connection to the characters, and there is not enough urgency to clarify why their stories need to be told (which is powerfully demonstrated in Pirandello's play). The second act profitably focuses on the characters as shaped by social and political forces, but by then, it is too late. For the several people who left at intermission, the play was apparently unredeemable.