REVIEW: THE PASSENGER by Nadya Menuhin at Finborough Theatre 10 February – 15 March 2025

‘there’s no safe place’ ★★★★ ½ 

Sometimes theatre gives you empty entertainment, something to occupy you for a couple of hours and then to evaporate. But sometimes it gives you magic.

THE PASSENGER has been dramatised by Nadya Menuhin from a novel by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz. It traces the journey of a respectable, well-heeled, well-regarded business man, from comfortable, slightly smug self-satisfaction, into a homeless, penniless refugee with no refuge, and if that story sounds familiar, that’s because it is. Tides of unreason wash over anyone, and there’s no safe place. 

Otto Silberman has the misfortune to be Jewish in Berlin in 1936. As the Nazis cement their hold on Germany, all his erstwhile friends discover just how Christian, how Aryan, how conformist they are, and systematically defraud him of his business, his wife, his home, his possessions. He criss-crosses Germany searching for an exit or for sanctuary, and that’s the play. Ninety minutes in the company of a desperate man searching for a way out.

The wonder of this production is the extent to which the audience are all fellow passengers on Otto’s road to nowhere. The intimacy of the playing space, the subtlety of a design that makes the upholstery on the set the same as that on the auditorium seats, the chilling hunt for refugees by uncaring border guards, that doesn’t distinguish between actors and audience. It’s unsettling and immersive, and generates huge sympathy for the man bounced round like a Pinball however unsympathetic he presented initially.

Immaculate ensemble acting by the five-person company (Robert Neumark Jones as Otto, Ben Fox, Eric MacLennan, Dan Milne, and Kelly Price as the rest of Europe), simple and effective lighting and design by Mattis Larsen and Hannah Schmidt, and superb, supple, dynamic direction by Tim Supple, and the privilege of experiencing great theatre at really close quarters in a little theatre make this a great, unmissable experience. It runs until 15th March. 

Photos by Steve Gregson

Box Office https://finboroughtheatre.co.uk/production/the-passenger/ 

Production Team

Director - Tim Supple

Set and Costume Designer - Hannah Schmidt

Lighting Designer - Mattis Larsen

Sound Designer - Joseph Alford

Producer - Presented by Toby Parsons Productions in association with Neil McPherson for the Finborough Theatre.

Cast

Ben Fox 

Eric MacLennan

Dan Milne

Robert Neumark Jones

Kelly Price