Tag Archives: Steve Gregson

THE PASSENGER

★★★★

Finborough Theatre

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THE PASSENGER

Finborough Theatre

★★★★

“a beautifully directed production that recreates the dark moodiness of the 1930”

The Passenger, adapted by Nadya Menuhin from Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz’s novel Der Reisende, has just opened at the Finborough Theatre. It’s a story set in Germany just after the Kristallnacht in 1938. The protagonist, a successful Jewish businessman, is attempting to find a way out of Nazi Germany. This tense, nail biting drama, directed by Tim Supple, begins like a thriller, and takes off like one of the express trains our leading man is always boarding.

The novel’s author was drawing on his own experiences of escaping Nazi Germany in the 1930s. The host of memorable characters that emerge onto the tiny stage at the Finborough Theatre have the ring of authenticity. We follow Otto Silbermann’s journey from Berlin, where he is forced to sell his apartment for pennies on the dollar to a German friend. Then he signs over his business—his life’s work—to a non-Jewish partner in order to protect it. Silbermann knows Gustav is untrustworthy and has a gambling habit, but at this late stage in Hitler’s takeover, he simply has no choice. Through a series of misadventures, and failure to obtain an exit visa, Silbermann finds himself in continual transit through Germany’s cities, already in the throes of political conflict. He meets many different characters and becomes involved in their stories, despite trying to melt anonymously into the background. His attempts to find a way out of Germany, while carrying a large sum of money in his briefcase, grow ever more desperate. Menuhin’s dramatization focuses on themes of love and betrayal in The Passenger, even if the love story in this play is a man’s bewildered struggle against fascists that are taking over the land he loves and fought for in the First World War. Silbermann is married to a Christian, considers himself thoroughly German, yet is betrayed by his country, his friends and business partners, simply because he is a Jew.

The Passenger is a beautifully directed production that recreates the dark moodiness of the 1930s that we remember from films like The Third Man. Tim Supple keeps the company continually on the move around and about a simple square. This square, lined with seating, becomes train carriages, waiting rooms, and any number of spaces that Otto Silbermann encounters in his travels. As the audience, we’re right in the middle of the action as well, as the actors, dressed in period coats and hats, make speedy entrances and exits in front of us. (Set and costume design by Hannah Schmidt.) All this movement makes for a brisk beginning of the play. The atmosphere of the set design is powerfully enhanced by Joseph Alford’s sound design. It’s easy to convince ourselves that we are there in 1930s train stations. Mattis Larsen’s lighting is tightly focused on the action, giving us the sense of constant motion in a space much larger than the one we are actually seated in. The actors deserve credit for managing the precise choreography that ensures they never collide with one another, even while managing a host of complicated actions, including dressing the leading man.

Robert Neumark Jones convinces as Otto Silbermann, and he is accompanied by an equally talented ensemble on his travels. Ben Fox plays his swindling business partner Gustav with just the right amount of bluster. Eric MacLennan is an overly hearty chess playing SA man, and Dan Milne switches between sympathetic characters to sinister supporters of Nazism in the blink of an eye. Kelly Price plays all the female roles with sympathy, and glamour, when required. Menuhin’s script powers up like a thriller, all short, sharp scenes as Silbermann’s story gets underway. It does seem overly long at ninety minutes of playing time, but that might be because the action slows midway through. The story, like Silbermann, struggles to find its earlier pace as it drifts aimlessly from one destination to another. Once Silbermann has failed to escape from Germany, what is he doing, other than trying to keep out of the clutches of the Nazis? A more sharply defined goal in the second half might help our traveller reach his ultimate destination, even if it is a less than hopeful one.

The Finborough Theatre continues its well earned reputation for producing thoughtful scripts with this play. The Passenger certainly feels like it could eventually make the transition to a bigger stage, and a larger audience. It’s a timely period piece that reminds us, chillingly, that the past is never very far away.



THE PASSENGER

Finborough Theatre

Reviewed on 13th February 2025

by Dominica Plummer

Photography by Steve Gregson

 

 


 

 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

KAFKA | ★★ | June 2024
THE TAILOR OF INVERNESS | ★★★ | May 2024
BANGING DENMARK | ★★★ | April 2024
FOAM | ★★★★ | April 2024
JAB | ★★★★ | February 2024
THE WIND AND THE RAIN | ★★★ | July 2023
SALT-WATER MOON | ★★★★ | January 2023
PENNYROYAL | ★★★★ | July 2022
THE STRAW CHAIR | ★★★ | April 2022
THE SUGAR HOUSE | ★★★★ | November 2021

HE PASSENGER

THE PASSENGER

THE PASSENGER

 

THE LONELY LONDONERS

★★★★

Kiln Theatre

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THE LONELY LONDONERS

Kiln Theatre

★★★★

“a moving, funny and exhilarating play”

Bristling with excellent performances from an outstanding ensemble class, The Lonely Londoners is a powerful tale of migration, adaptation and the struggles of getting by in a cold and unwelcoming city. Director Ebenezer Bamgboye brings Roy Williams’ critically acclaimed stage adaptation of Sam Selvon’s seminal novel on the Windrush Generation to the Kiln Theatre for a second run with the original cast, following a successful debut last year at the Jermyn Street Theatre.

Central to the novel is its oral quality. Foregrounding the intricacies and rhythms of Caribbean English, the characters tell their stories of love and flirtation, experiences of racism, employment difficulties, and battles with the cold, and capturing this style and energy presents challenge to any adaptor, and the play meets this challenge successfully. The sparse stage setting (work of Laura Ann Price), consisting of six packing boxes – one for each character, centres the narratives told by the characters. Much of the action unfolds in the flat of lead character Moses (played brilliantly by Solomon Israel), a longstanding migrant from Trinidad living in London, who helps new arrivals and others find their feet. Within his house, his friends and acquaintances bum cigarettes and share stories, the minimalist staging focusing attention onto the language and storytelling of its characters.

This is reinforced by the innovative lighting design by Elliot Griggs, with a backdrop of lighted squares that change colour, brighten and darken, and flash in intense strobe-like patterns, echoing the narrative and this is supported by modern musical choices. Complementing the experimental lighting are sung sections performed with ethereal beauty by Aimée Powell – in the role of Moses’ partner in Trinidad – and interpretive dance sections which convey those emotions that the men struggle to easily express through speech. This expressionistic layer adds further depth to play.

All the performers are fantastic. Romario Simpson excels in the role of Galahad, a loud-talking new arrival determined to make London his. Gilbert Kyem Jnr shines as Big City, a physically imposing ‘hustler’ who struggles to remember places names, to great comedic effect. Shannon Hayes and Carol Moses are alternately moving and hilarious as mother- (Tanty) and daughter-in-law (Agnes), brought over to London on the back of stories of success from their son and husband, Lewis, played by Tobi Bakare. In placing Tanty and Agnes’ stories at the centre of the play, the new adaptation inserts female experience into a narrative which, in its original telling, was very masculine dominated.

Tobi Bakare’s performance deserves special mention, as Lewis provides an insight into the questions that are the heart of the play. We see his struggles most clearly as he battles against unemployment in a patriarchal society that places a man’s work as his purpose, racism in a country that told him it was his Motherland, his own misogynistic double standards that cause him to become jealous of his wife and finally alcohol, which he turns to quiet the inside of his head. Through all these profound emotional changes, Bakare is compelling to watch, especially in his struggle to write down his feelings when prompted by Moses.

The Lonely Londoners is a moving, funny and exhilarating play, and the difficulties and successes of its characters are a captivating narrative. Its final note is a love letter to London, a city that is as tough, beautiful, worn down and resilient as the characters themselves.



THE LONELY LONDONERS

Kiln Theatre

Reviewed on 16th January 2025

by Rob Tomlinson

Photography by Steve Gregson

 

 


 

 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

TWO STRANGERS (CARRY A CAKE ACROSS NEW YORK) | ★★★★★ | November 2023

HE LONELY LONDONERS

THE LONELY LONDONERS

E LONELY LONDONERS