Diandra Reviews It All

Dominique Rousseau’s Pipeline comes on the heels of a very important topic that fluctuates in garnering the attention it deserves; black men being systemically tossed, ignored, and, worse, chained. Pipeline shows the lack of forgiveness and protection that can occur in a system that misunderstands/ blinds itself to black humanity. Through a mother and son, and audience is led through the seemingly inherent fall of young black men from school to prison.

Karan Pittman play Nya, Pipeline’s protagonist, with a puncturing desperation. As her son Omari (Namir Smallwood) grows more violent towards others, smacking a teacher, and emotionally distant from her, she is trying to prevent his expulsion from a good school and the potential filing of assault against him. For her, these are gateway doors to her beloved son entering prison, and joining the many black men who get lost in a cycle of repeated incarceration. What I find most fascinating about Pipeline is that it, inadvertently, goes beyond issues of race and class. Nya is doing monetarily well, even if unhappy, as a teacher, and Omari’s father, Xavier (Morocco Omari), is always economically supporting his son, even if not emotionally. Notice, I used the words “unhappy” and “not emotionally”, despite describing their material stability. There is the point. The American Education System cannot only be mono its culture, but also in its emotions. Omari is Cleary hurting from the lack of connection with his dad, and being a young man means you are still learning to “tame”, as his mother would say, your sentiments/self. Yet, if you are not “always good” in feeling and behavior, you can be easily marked as “troubled” or a “bad kid”. Still, is it the teacher’s job to emotionally sustain and balance your child?

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Teachers, in many ways, spend more time with kids than their own parents. They are their “guardians” all day, but have to walk a tight-rope because though they may guide the children they teach, but they did not birth them. As Omari grows sentimentally numb to his mom, himself, and his surroundings, Smallwood plays this young man as light dimming with not enough people to care or to notice his need of a spiritual epiphany. The problem is when you are black and spiritually hurting, it is more likely that people will see your skin and not your inner hurt. While Omari should not have been violent and can be the “poster-child” for teen angst, Director Lileana Blain-Cruz shows that there is not enough forgiveness and compassion in our American systems for people that are going through hard times/ feelings, and that lack of humanity trickles down into inhumanity the darker your skin gets. Cruz has brilliantly set-up a nuance to a topic that not a lot of people want to discuss or listen, and Morrisseau adds other characters such as war-torn veteran Laurie (Tasha Lawrence) and school security guard Dun (Jaime Lincoln Smith), to further societal apathy can hit anyone. Even those that did their best for their country and themselves can suffer from the pangs of a society too bombarded with negative feelings to even want to feel for everyone. These characters, though small, are fiery personalities that, at times, quell in realizing that it feels too easy to stop caring for yourself when no one else does. On that note, Pipeline is left in a sort of cliffhanger. Will Omari be tossed away as “another black criminal”? Will his mom or someone emotionally awaken him to care for himself, and never give up his power/ human value, even when other or himself cannot see it? For More Information On Pipeline Click Here. It is 90 minutes with no intermission located on Lincoln Center Theater, 150 West 65th Street, New York, NY 10023.