Shana Carroll has been fascinated with train travel since childhood. She remembers regularly hearing the whistle of a passing train. Multi-talented Carroll, a Jewish Berkeley, California native, began performing in her youth while attending both public and Hebrew school and later working as an aerialist with the famed Montreal-based Cirque du Soleil. In the “Passengers” playbill, she states that “trains have this way of talking about the past and the future all at once.”
Not surprisingly, her love of both theater and circus have resulted in “Passengers,” a breathtaking yet disarmingly intimate hybrid work. Triple threat Carroll wrote, directed and choreographed this captivating work – now in a return staging by The 7 Fingers (which she co-founded with Gypsy Snider) at the American Repertory Theater. Thanks to very talented performers and designers, the 90-minute “Passengers” proves a very entertaining and thoughtful trip that invites audience members on board to share its vivid and exuberant voyage.
Theatergoers join the title travelers right from the start as the 10 “passengers” prepare for their trip. After sitting in a semi-circle and breathing in a kind of reflective exercise, the travelers turn their seats into the form of train rows. Eventually, Ana Cappelluto’s imaginative scenic design includes carts on wheels with luggage. Johnny Ranger’s inspired projection design captures the look of changing vistas along the way. At the same time, composer-musical director Colin Gagne provides a wide range of selections (with lyrics co-written with Carroll) that help to evoke the different areas passed on the trip.
As with all such travel, passengers alternately read, rest, converse and move around the train. By a leap of imagination, of course, the passengers become performers, and their feats brilliantly take the stage. Meliejade Tremblay-Bouchard easily whirls several hula hoops around her body. Santiago Rivera juggles amazingly even as he moves around on the train. Teo LeBaut makes his dangerous descent headfirst on a Chinese pole look easy as he stops just before the stage. Michael Patterson displays terrific underarm and shoulder strength as he supports various climbers – most notably in a sequence involving a gravity-defying hoist toward a waiting catcher. Marie-Christine Fouriner pulls off arresting leaps.
The visual standout among the many fine routines is Amanda Orozco’s very poetic aerial display on large glistening silks. There is also a wonderfully appropriate sequence involving Einstein’s Train that not only deals with the great scientist’s theory of general relativity but also connects with Carroll’s focus on the relationship between passengers’ perceptions of the past and the future.
Rounding out “Passengers” are high-level efforts by Victor Crepin, Eduardo de Azevedo Grillo, Isabella Diaz and Basile Pucek.
Carroll’s inventive choreography has all of the cast members occasionally running as though propelling the train. She also conveys the developing friendships and relationships between the passengers through a smart modern dance repertoire. The vulnerability and humanity of the characters is laudably intensified by the fact that The 7 Fingers employ no nets so that risk and trust are impressively exemplified throughout the show.
Train lovers and newcomers alike will thrill to not only the circus heights of “Passengers” but also its you-are-there experience. Book passage right away.
“Passengers” will run at the American Repertory Theater at the Loeb Drama Center through Sept. 26.
