“PIPELINE”: Performances are underway for “Pipeline.” Directed by Alex Conboy, the play runs through March 3 at the Hamilton Murray Theater.Above, from left: Omari (Matthew Oke), a student who faces expulsion from a private school, and his mother, Nya (Alex Conboy), a public school teacher who desperately wants her son to have opportunities that her students may never have. (Photo by Lucy Shea)

By Donald H. Sanborn III

Prior to her career as an actor and award-winning playwright, as well as a story editor and co-producer of the Showtime series Shameless, Dominique Morisseau taught drama at the Henry Ford Academy, a high school near Detroit, where her mother also taught.

So Morisseau’s moving and poetic drama Pipeline (2017), in which the central protagonist is a teacher, is informed by firsthand experience. The play won the Edgerton Foundation New Play Award, and premiered at Lincoln Center Theater.

Princeton University’s Theatre Intime is continuing its season with Pipeline. The production is thoughtfully directed by Alex Conboy, who also designed the set and portrays the role of Nya.

The play’s title refers to the “school to prison pipeline,” which the American Civil Liberties Union describes as a “disturbing national trend wherein children are funneled out of public schools and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems.”

Pipeline centers around Nya, a public school teacher who is dedicated to her students. However, as a divorced mother, she is determined to give her son, Omari, a better education than she knows her school can offer.  She sends him to a private institution.

So it is particularly devastating when, as a result of a crucial incident, Omari faces expulsion. Knowing too well the downward path Omari’s life could take, Nya is desperate to save his future at the school.

Behind Nya, Videographer Yasmin Sokunle projects a collage of images that include footage of young people being arrested. Although the projections are sometimes visually distracting (partially because they have to compete with the stage lighting), they succinctly and explicitly illustrate Nya’s fears.

To Conboy the characters “felt so real — their emotions were potent and overwhelmingly authentic,” the director writes in a program note. Conboy finds the play’s social relevance heightened by “the recent overturning of affirmative action by the U.S. Supreme Court.”

The director observes, “The over policing of colored neighborhoods and schools creates environments in which young people of color, particularly males, are more likely to be incarcerated in. This school to prison pipeline is very real and only one of many issues stemming from systemic racism in the United States.” What makes this production successful is that the passion that fuels these remarks also characterizes the staging and performances.

The atmosphere at the public school is succinctly established by an announcement made by an unidentified staff member via a loudspeaker. (Voiceovers are by Lana Gaige and Wasif Sami. The capable sound design is by Olivia Bell.) After oppressively warning the students, “We have the city government behind us,” the voice announces a pep rally and wishes the students “a glorious day!”

In more than one play Morisseau heightens suspense by denying the audience crucial information until she is ready for us to receive it. In the historical drama Detroit ’67 (which Princeton Summer Theater presented in 2022), the playwright denies us the benefit of hindsight by forcing us to depend on the characters’ observations for information about what is happening outside of their apartment.

A similar technique is used in Pipeline; details about Omari’s infraction are revealed in careful stages. Gradually we learn that he initiated a fight with a crucial adult who made him feel “singled out,” the incident has been captured on video, and that starting the fight results in Omari’s “third strike,” hence the threat of expulsion. What unfolds is a series of scenes in which we see different characters’ reactions to these events.

Besides Nya, those closest to Omari include his feisty girlfriend, Jasmine (confidently portrayed by Tryphena Awuah), Both Nya and Jasmine are determined to protect Omari in their own way, so a clash is inevitable. Conboy’s staging and Awuah’s body language lets Jasmine deny Nya too much personal space, making clear that Jasmine is not going to back down on her position or give willingly give Nya any quarter, even if the latter is an authority figure.

By contrast, Conboy’s body language evinces defense — keeping things at bay. This is notable during a conversation between Nya and her embittered, tough-as-nails colleague Laurie (Grace Wang), a teacher who wishes that faculty could use corporal punishment on students (she suggests that Omari needs a “swift kick”). In an almost involuntary response to one of Laurie’s particularly aggressive gestures, Nya puts an arm out to block it, just as she wants to block anything that would endanger Omari.

Another of Nya’s colleagues is a security officer, Dun (Joshua Nanyaro). When we first see Dun he is debonair with an inviting (read: almost suggestive) smile; but he is quick to defend himself vociferously when Laurie blames an incident in her classroom on too-minimal security.

As Xavier, Omari’s estranged father, Justus Wilhoit is effective at using facial expressions; Xavier’s gaze is frequently cool and calculating. Wilhoit lets Xavier’s entire demeanor be polished but more than slightly unapproachable — even, or especially, around Omari. We feel a lack of warmth that has characterized the relationship between father and son (and, in scenes between Xavier and Nya, husband and wife) for some time.

Matthew Oke is effective in conveying the anger inside of Omari, letting it simmer until crucial moments when it is provoked into erupting. Aided by Conboy’s staging, he also portrays the disparate relationships Omari has with each of his parents; both are complicated, but one shows more promise of rapprochement. Physical space and body language are potent tools in illustrating this.

Conboy’s set provides clear spaces for each of the play’s disparate worlds. On one end is Jasmine’s dormitory at the private school; on the other is the teachers’ lounge at the public school, where the harried faculty discuss the frustrations of their jobs. In between is the classroom occupied by Nya, who is awkwardly but indelibly connected to both worlds.

A centerpiece of the play is a quotation of, and meditation on, the Gwendolyn Brooks poem “We Real Cool.” One of Conboy’s most striking bits of staging is for a sequence in which Nya teaches the poem to her class. As Nya imparts facts about the poem, Omari — who is not in the classroom but stands in front of Nya, at the foot of the stage — recites Brooks’ words.

Physically placing Omari directly in front of Nya allows us to see that she is keenly aware that he and his generation are the future — he is literally what lies ahead; he and his classmates will have to deal with the world that she and the other teachers have been a part of leaving behind. That is what motivates Nya — she will do anything in her power to protect her son from the fate suffered by the narrator of Brooks’ poem.

The sequence is enhanced by Le’Naya Wilkerson’s lighting. Omari stands in silhouette, made visible by a spotlight whose rays are caught by part of the white shirt with which Costume Designer Antea Garo outfits him. It is a striking tableau.

A key reason that Pipeline is so poignant is that we come to realize that the reason for Omari’s behavior (the fight) is, on one level, rather universal. This in turn forces us to contemplate the tragic fact that, for many in underprivileged communities, actions that stem from universal causes are not met with universal grace.

Pipeline, a drama that centers on education, has valuable lessons to offer. Princeton audiences are fortunate that the play finds dedicated interpreters in Theatre Intime. Morisseau is an actor as well as a playwright, and the script gives performers ample scope for some pithy deliveries. This palpably inspires the cast and creative team.

“Pipeline” will play at the Hamilton Murray Theater in Murray Dodge Hall, Princeton University, through March 3.  For tickets, show times, and further information visit theatreintime.org.