S.E. Barcus

Seattle Rep’s opening night for 2023-24

By S.E. Barcus

The Seattle Rep had its opening night to Passengers Wednesday, and their 2023-24 season was born … with a train whistle.

Passengers, the contemporary circus piece (a genre that is a “new venture for Seattle Rep”) was directed, written, and choreographed by Shana Carroll and produced by the creative collective, “The 7 Fingers.”  Our creator says in the program notes that she knew, based on her life experiences, that she always “wanted to do a show centered around the cinematic world of trains.”  She accomplished this tonight.  Einstein on the Beach set designers would be proud.

The show starts with nine chairs in train-rows, with nine … actors? dancer-acrobats? … seated upon them.  (I’m not even sure what we call these “contemporary circus” performers, but I love them so!  How about just ‘performers’?)  Then one person starts to breathe, in a steam-like, rhythmic pattern.  Then another person breathes a little differently – perhaps wheels clacking on the tracks.  Someone else then, a cylinder, and exhaust, and so on, until for a moment I thought we’d be heading for a cool Caroline Shaw badass choral work.

But then a pleasant minimalist piano piece comes in with music based on a theme composed by Raphael Cruz, friend of the creator, who passed away tragically young just as she set down to create the work, and to whom the show is dedicated.  And before we know it, everyone is up and moving and starting to do some pas de deuxs and acrobatics, running on and off the stage – similar to a dance company, with ballerinas coming and going with leaps and graceful movements.   Indeed, half of the time these performers are much more dancing than doing straight-up “look at what I can do” gymnastics, dancing in pairs, then in threes, graceful, but then over there doing handstands on one another, and — OH DAMN! That lady just got tossed 15 feet in the air, did a flip, and was caught by those two guys out of nowhere!  …  Not PNB.

Scene 3 featured our hula hoop artist, French-Canadian Méliejade Tremblay-Bouchard.  And she shows you, definitively, that there’s no Canada like French Canada, it’s the best Canada in the land.  She attacks her hula hoops with expressions of great joy, while a très groovy upbeat Squirrel-Nut-Zippers-like swing-jazz song plays.  Her skills are amazing.  And thematic – as we start to see circles, one of the running themes, i.e, wheels.  (The performers themselves are often wheels, as well.  During their dance/acrobatics segueing scenes, they are often turned in mid-air by other performers, like a wheel.)  After various folks fly through her hoops – as they spin! – she does the classic all-4-limbs spinning hula hoops, with the last one thrown spot-on from across the stage.  By the end, Ms. Tremblay-Bouchard has about 10 or so hula hoops swinging down her body, spinning, like a Christmas tree, or more like the Metropolis robot, surrounded by her magnetic rays….

After hula hoops, there’s a brief melancholy segue with ‘the muscle men’ of a circus.  And suitcases – with clothes from the sky.

Then comes our trapeze artist, the Englishwoman Kaisha Dessalines-Wright, who plays many parts tonight.  Her trapeze work was beautiful, all while they pulled the bar up fairly high off the ground whilst she does her twisting and turning, grabbing the bar and/or rope with hands/arms/feet/knees.  All while video in the back portrays the steel-beamed architecture of a tall building or bridge.  Her shadow on this image, spinning on the trapeze amidst the tall heights of a bridge, likely subconsciously increased the feeling of ‘death-defying’, taking us briefly out of the Bagley Wright Theater, and making it seem we were watching Philippe Petit way up on a high wire.

While her trapeze work was beautiful, she could hardly rest – soon after she would sing a song, and right after this, play the lead in a fanciful scene where she would freeze the performers in the train as she manipulated them in mischievous ways, like a supernatural Amelie.  She is also our contortionist, seemingly double-jointed in her hips, as she crab walks pas de probleme in otherwise non-physiological ways….   (What are the medical plans like, for contemporary circus performers, in treating degenerative arthritic joint pains, I wonder?  – Oh wait, most hail from French Canada – much better health care than us, so no worries.)

Another segue — tumbleweeds on the video as the train passes across the land, through desert, no where near ‘the destination’.  And performers mimicking the tumbleweeds, twisting and rolling in various – often humorous — configurations.  Again, with the wheel theme.

Then a pleasant ukulele song/interlude, before that same singer, Santiago Rivera Laugerud, turns out to be our amazing and fairly unique juggler for the evening.  Often ‘horizontal’ juggling around his neck.  And once when he juggles with a partner – it is vertical, throwing up and down to each other, rather than across a room.  By the end he’s up to, I believe, 7 balls.  Very well done.

Then some more acrobatics work for segue, making me think, when we go to ballet – we are often (plebians like me, anyway) waiting to see how high or far the men can leap, or how many spins on her tiptoes the prima ballerina can do.  Otherwise, it is all beauty and artistry.  Well, again, this contemporary circus schtick — developed in the 1970’s in Australia, Quebec, Great Britain, France, and yes the U.S. (go Teatro Zinzanni, one of the early ones!  I hope Zinzanni folks get to hang with these Les 7 doigts de la main folks for a little bit, this month..!) – has a ‘leg up’ on ballet, if you ask me.  These guys dance very beautifully and artistically, as well – but then throw in a death-defying acrobatic spectacle every 30 seconds, to boot.  And you folks in straight-narrative theater, and music, and video-artists – they’re coming for you, too.  They blend it all in one story/experience.  Laurie Anderson was a vanguard in ‘performance art,’ but groups like The 7 Fingers are … (ugh, sorry) … taking it to new heights. 

By about 20 minutes in, you are reveling in their talent, and their contagious joie de vivre, whether you were a stuffy old codger who thought ‘this isn’t THEatah!,’ or not!  And AI robots ain’t doing these moves anytime soon.  So, suck it, ChatGPT!  Try to have two robots with your software up on a trapeze at the same time, one spinning the other like a wheel!  (Like Mandi Orozco and the hysterical Nella Niva do, with ‘the greatest of ease,’ to some New Orleans-sounding Dixieland jazz music…, although I believe the piece is titled St. Louis Blues.  Great soundtrack of original music, by the way!  Typical, for contemporary cirque productions.)   And you see buttocks, hanging down, dancing to the beat, that are of course sexy (what buttocks are not?) – but buttocks on an acrobat?  They are demoralizing, as well, in a way.  They make you know definitively that the ‘butt’ is actually a MUSCLE.  These are some taut, flexed, Olympian-athlete-styled buttocks we’re talking.  These are butts that can kill.

I’m not sure Ms. Niva was meant to be the main “clown” tonight, but her silly grins to the audience, her kvetching in … was that Italian?! … as she stormed in and out with her ‘ba-humbug’ attitude.  Hysterical.

Total runtime for us was 1 hour 20, which actually felt fine to me.  But I overheard others afterwards, walking out, disappointed it ended so soon and did not go the full 1 hour 40 as advertised (perhaps a missed segment?  There is a photo of a silk aerialist in the program, and a tight wire act as described on the soundtrack, neither of which were seen on opening night?), but the pacing and duration felt appropriate and satisfactory, nonetheless.

Then they go back to the train, have more whimsical discussions on time, and some famous quotes by Einstein.  Soon, after the wonderful spinning rope work by Eduardo de Azevedo Grillo, I briefly thought the story might revolve around two lone souls who were becoming lovers, our trapeze artist and our rope artist.  But no, it is another vignette, another brief chance moment in ‘time’ — with no ‘main character,’ no real ‘destination’, no resolution, no linear ‘story’.  More of an old-school pomo pastiche.

With the amazing Chinese pole work by Marco Ingaramo, the piece ends poetically, all in black, on a black pole.  He tries to climb to great heights, yet always slipping back down, echoes of Sisyphus, of existentialism, closing out this non-linear, experiential life-affirming story of Passengers, with fun and sadness and interesting anecdotes and loving chance moments with each other.  And lots and lots of crazy-talented circus acrobatics.  

Then over.  Perhaps suddenly, young, like the close friend the show’s creator lost.  Perhaps in older age.  All of us passengers in space and time, on Earth.  Then over.

Copyright 9-27-2023

Featured image is a screen grab from the website of The 7 Fingers, and their show, Passengers. Photographer Alexandre Galliez.