This preview article originally appeared in The Star & Wave newspaper on Wednesday, September 10, 2025.
A Subway Ride Carries Two Young Men into the Past
By Lynn Martenstein
Two young men meet on the subway in New York City in 1992. Steve is white, educated, and tries to come across as cool. Eric is Black, street-smart and somewhat menacing. “Me and my boys like stickin’ up people on trains,” he brags to Steve.
“Dutch Masters,” opening this week at Cape May Stage, is a provocative play about race, class and privilege. Playwright Greg Keller set the play in 1992, a year racial tensions spilled onto streets nationwide, most notably, in Los Angeles.
Steve wants to read on the train. Eric wants to talk. Their “conversation” is definitely one-sided until they discover they both like rap music and the same basketball players.
Having found a small patch of common ground, Eric suggests they hang out at a nearby park and share a “blunt,” a cigar filled with cannabis. To say much more would give away the story.
John Snow portrays Steve in the production, and Christian Henley plays Eric. Both deliver powerful performances, and play off one another brilliantly. Not surprisingly, they have played their parts before, co-starring in the show at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles in 2023.
Both actors dug into their characters more deeply in preparing to reprise their roles at Cape May Stage. “Christian and I work really well together and have been delving into who these two characters really are to one another, and exploring the deeper subtext between them,” Snow explained.
Henley, a native New Yorker, brushed up for replaying his role by revisiting several locations recreated in the play. “It helps me better tell the story,” he said. “Being in those places grounded me in the experiences Eric is drawing upon when he meets Steve.”
Gregg Daniels is the guest director for this play. He directed both “The Mountaintop” in 2014 and “The Whipping Man” in 2012 at Cape May Stage. He was also in the cast in “Master Harold…and the boys” in 2009. He has played multiple roles on television shows and in movies throughout his career.
“This play deals with the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ but its sympathies are clearly with the ‘have-nots,’” Daniels explained. “It’s a powerful piece that doesn’t take sides exactly but has the audience rooting for both young men as they struggle to hold on to long-held loyalties and beliefs.”
“It is a deeply human need to find connections with other human beings,” he added. “It’s been said that we have more in common than we have with things that separate us.”
This play also gets high marks for its set design and sound effects. As the play moves from a subway car to a park to somewhere I can’t mention without giving away the plot, various backdrops—painted panels on wheels—seamlessly glide on and off the stage. The play’s sound effects are also impressive and add a solid sound track to this moving uptown, downtown story.
“Dutch Masters” is a 70-minute show with no intermission that runs through Oct. 19. Due to adult language and intense confrontations, this play is recommended for audiences over the age of 16. For tickets or more information, call the box office at (609) 770-8311 or visit capemaystage.org.