Gripping drama centring around one Jew’s attempts to flee the Nazis by train – with a series of uncertain destinations
German Jewish author Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz wrote The Passenger, the novel on which Nadya Menuhin bases this adaptation, when he was just 23. After the Nazis murdered his uncle, he fled Germany with his mother in haste, only to be interned in Britain and sent to Australia. He tragically lost his life aged 27 when his ship returning to Britain was attacked by a U-boat.
The trigger for the drama in the play is Kristallnacht – 'The Night of Broken Glass’ (9 November 1938) – a pogrom attacking Jewish people, businesses and shops throughout Nazi Germany. With almost 20 parts to play, you might imagine a considerable cast, but they are played by just five versatile actors. One of them is Robert Neumark Jones, who plays only the central character – the eponymous passenger Otto Silbermann, a wealthy Jewish businessman attempting to flee Germany. He fills the role with a range of emotions, from tense fear to fury and even sexual attraction, despite his plight. Kelly Price, as the sole woman in the cast, plays all five female roles, including Silbermann’s non-Jewish wife Ursula Elfriede, whom he mistakenly thought would afford him safety from persecution.
As Silbermann's routes of escape rapidly close, every train he takes across Germany winds up taking him back to Berlin. Desperately clutching his briefcase of essentials, which include cash and a chess set, he is taken advantage of by cynical fellow travellers who milk him of his money in exchange for unfulfilled promises of assistance. The chess set provides one of the most spectacular sequences of the action, as he engages in a game with a Nazi officer (played by Eric MacLennan), during which the two duel by barking out the names of the chess pieces and where they are to move.
Price, as both the officer’s wife and Elfriede, is as glamorous and enticing as she is desperate and angry – a character shift marked seamlessly by a change of coats. Every actor seems able to switch effortlessly between roles as the need arises. Ben Fox and MacLennan are a pair of chameleons as they morph from friend to foe on trains and at borders; and I was particularly taken with Dan Milne as a succession of identical, scarily cheerful ticket inspectors sending Silbermann back to Berlin again and again.
Hannah Schmidt (set and costume design) uses the small intimate space of the Finborough’s auditorium ingeniously, leaving it as simply a square of red chairs, within and around which the action takes place, affording both actors and audience opportunities to engage briefly as they pass. The stations where Silbermann finds himself turned back, revealed by Mattis Larsen’s clever lighting, which picks out their names above, and Joseph Alford’s soundscape of train noises, including whistles and brakes, adds to the tension. The atmosphere, in turn, is intensified thanks to director Tim Supple's flair and empathy. It's also worth noting that this is Menuhin's first full-length production and the result is a remarkable staging of a tense drama.
By Judi Herman
Photos by Steve Gregson
The Passenger runs until Saturday 15 March. 7.30pm, 3pm (Sat & Sun only). £18-£25. Finborough Theatre, SW10 9ED. finboroughtheatre.co.uk