Photo by Gerard Assi
An ordinary bus ride. The bus stops. The doors hiss open and the uniformed bus driver waves you on board. The only thing remiss is that all mobile phones remain in their owner’s pockets. People look around at each other, somewhat suspiciously waiting for something to happen. The doors close, the soundtrack starts and for the few sitting close enough to the actors to notice the microphones wrapped around their heads slowly guide the audience’s view to the man in the blue suit and the casually dressed women who chooses the seat next to him. His phone rings. An angry boss clearly has him on edge and a conversation between strangers begins, the kind we so often pretend not to notice but secretly devour and then forget. There’s no forgetting Passenger. It’s a brilliantly crafted story that thrusts you into a kind of live-action cinematic experience and artfully blurs the line between reality and fiction, leading you to regard the external world with ecstatic suspicion.
Passenger’s medium and message can’t be separated. Everything about the bus setting plays such a critical role in shaping the narrative and despite being a simple concept in some ways, it appears as such only because of its immaculate execution. The journey has barely begun before a cowgirl gallops beside the bus on a massive black horse and suddenly the world beyond the buses windows loses its certainty. And just like that, you’re drawn into the minutia of the stop–start conversation of the two main characters, whose reality feels easier to accept than the scale of the world outside.
The narrative’s slow-burn pacing allows the willing suspension of disbelief to truly take hold and Tom Fitzgerald’s beautifully composed soundtrack, along with cinematic-scale backdrop rolling past, infect the silence with ever-increasing tension. We learn that the man in the blue suit is a business man who knows how to turn a profit but feels little for the effects of how he does it. The Docklands serves as his case in point and as the mobile theatre passes tower after tower of shining, empty glass, his confidence appears to thin. Jim Russel expertly crafts a character whose combustible mix of stress, confidence and aggressive morality makes him the precise masculine identity that always seems on the edge of crises despite their position in society. Beside him, Beth Buchanan is equally moving in her skittish, naïve and at times ethereal portrayal of his interlocutor. Her disarming innocence and matter-of-fact thinking provides a fascinating contrast to the salesman’s bravado and his defense of the imploding business deal at the story’s heart.
Nicola Gunn’s subtle weaving of the story’s moral subplot is outstanding. A mixture of pop-culture, real-time commentary and personal narrative explore our fraught notions of justice and drive the tension through to the thrilling conclusion. Passenger transports you into a parallel reality that transforms the normalcy of a home city into a thronging surreal cinema-scape that is part Truman show, part Western Noir. Its subtle touches elevate the everyday into something remarkable and with simple intelligent storytelling it pulls you into a gripping theatrical experience that is difficult to leave. Passenger’s only real flaw is its four-day run because a production of this quality deserves much more.
Rating: 5 stars out of 5
Passenger
Presented by Arts Centre Melbourne and Footscray Community Arts Centre
Devised by Jessica Wilson, Ian Pidd and Nicola Gunn
Directed by Ian Pidd and Jessica Wilson
Text by Nicola Gunn
Performed by Beth Buchanan and Jim Russel
Composition by Tom Fitzgerald
Conceptual and devising input by Bec Reid, Jeff Blake and the performers
23-26 March 2017
