Theater meets circus act in Seattle Rep’s joyful, wistful ‘Passengers’

Theater review

If the old saying is true, that there are only two plots — “a person goes on a journey” and “a stranger comes to town” — then “Passengers,” now running at Seattle Rep, manages to be both at once. Caught as they are in the suspended time that is train travel, everyone in this high-energy, acrobatics-filled story is a stranger and everyone is on a journey, and we the audience get to join them along the way — all of us residents of the same tiny, temporary town on rails for this 90-minute ride. 

“Passengers” is a Canadian import from Les 7 doigts de la main (The 7 Fingers), a Montreal-based collective of world-class, contemporary circus artists. As the lights dim, the show’s nine cast members walk casually on stage, acknowledging each other and the audience. They sit and breathe together; suddenly those breath patterns coalesce into the chugging of a locomotive. A train whistle blows, and we’re off.

Using a multitude of circus arts, “Passengers” captures the silliness inherent in navigating these small shared spaces — the shushers, the seat-savers, the coy looks across crowded cars. But it also captures the agony of departures and the wistful romance of travel itself, and those moments when delicious anonymity tips over into loneliness.

“Passengers” is directed, written and choreographed by The 7 Fingers’ co-founding artistic director Shana Carroll (who is co-choreographer and circus designer for the upcoming “Water for Elephants” musical on Broadway, based on Sara Gruen’s popular 2006 novel), and her feel for pacing is impeccable, keeping energy high and never lingering too long in joy or in sadness. A young romance backed by a cheeky ukulele number abuts beautiful acrobatic pas de deux, lit by actor-held spotlights. There are heart-stopping drops and catches in a trapeze duet, and a propulsive hula-hoop number that feels like locomotion. A young woman in a backpack clambers up aerial silks in one moment, wide-eyed and hopeful, and the entire cast (top-flight clowns as well as acrobats) get in on a juggling act in the next. 

While there is a start-to-finish narrative, don’t get caught up trying to track it too literally. Simple set pieces and projections keep us anchored in space and time — are we still in the station? Or is scenery whizzing by (though a few video moments veer into bad-karaoke-background vibes)?

Modern circus is as much akin to modern dance as it is to genre granddaddy Cirque du Soleil (of which 7 Fingers is an offshoot), with its over-the-top design and larger-than-life theatrics. “Passengers,” with its simple, human-focused narrative, feels even more akin to local outfit Acrobatic Conundrum, a contemporary circus group that focuses on intimate storytelling. 

For most of us, movement is not our primary mode of expression, and as such, there can be something wonderfully freeing about watching such physical theater, as the pressure to “get it” is released and replaced by an investigation of one’s in-the-moment experience. When does your breath catch? What makes your eyes well, whether or not you can identify exactly why?   

Through all its laughs and thrills, “Passengers” is at its best when it remains more abstract and trusts its audience to stay onboard. It’s perfectly OK to mention that, theoretically, traveling on a train is traveling through time, without later explicating the Einsteinian theory behind the assertion. But these quibbles are minor, and it’s a thrill to see a new form of storytelling on the Seattle Rep stage, especially when executed at such an extraordinarily high level.