“The Passenger” at Finborough Theatre
Tom Bolton in West London
15 February 2025
The Passenger is adapted from a remarkable book. Its author Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz was a German Jewish writer who fled his homeland in 1935 after the murder of his uncle, as the Nazi terror began to close in. Moving from country to country, he and his mother were eventually interned as enemy aliens on the Isle of Man. Deported to Australia, he was eventually freed, only to die when his ship was torpedoed by a U-boat on the voyage back to Britain. His last book was an account of the persecution of Jews which followed the Kristallnacht pogrom in 1938. Forgotten for 70 years, it was republished in 2010 as The Passenger – a rare and powerful account of a terrible time from someone who had suffered under the Nazi regime.
Photo credit: Steve Gregson.
The Passenger transfixes the onlooker with horror. Nadya Menuhin has adapted the novel with great skill to create a drama powered by escalating disbelief and panic. In the course of a week, well-to-do businessman Otto Silbermann, who imagines himself protected by his money, social status, and Aryan wife, becomes a penniless refugee within his own country, constantly travelling the railway system to avoid arrest. He finds himself betrayed by everyone, from his relatives to his business partner, all of whom choose to protect and enrich themselves at his expense.
The story is both familiar and surprising. We know what happened to German Jews persecuted by the Nazis – of course we do – but what that actually entailed is something of a revelation. From forced sales of assets, to being turned back at the border by armed Belgian guards, the reality of being rejected by the society you imagined you belonged to is laid out in all its humiliating minutiae.
As Silbermann, Robert Neumark Jones is driven by exasperation. He simply cannot believe that what happens to him is possible – “This is the 20th century!” he pleads. As all his assumptions are dismantled, he makes a slow-burning transition into mounting fury, which culminates with a remarkable scene in which he screams at a Nazi policeman to give him the justice that will never be forthcoming.
Around him, a resourceful and committed cast flip between multiple characters as Silbermann’s transient existence brings him into the orbit of other Jews on the run, and the anti-Semitic population that persecutes them, actively or passively. Kelly Price expertly plays six different women who offer both sympathy and threat. Eric MacLennan also plays six characters, including blustering Nazi nobodies relishing their sudden power. Dan Milne plays people with the misfortune to “look” Jewish, who Silbermann finds himself abandoning to save himself. Ben Fox channels a resentful thuggishness as, among other parts, Silbermann’s business partner, who fleeces him with relish.
Using every inch of the Finborough’s postage stamp stage, Tim Supple directs the fluid action with great skill. The play is all about movement and constraint, neatly represented by Hannah Schmidt’s waiting room and destination board with an endless round of dangerous journeys.
The production is highly compelling, driven by Silbermann’s disbelief and matched by that of the audience. It is a significant achievement, making the concept that we should never forget the Holocaust something tangible and current. We may think we understand, but each experience of individual catastrophe was both comparable and entirely different. In the wake of Holocaust Memorial Day, the Finborough has picked its moment perfectly to bring Boschwitz’s crucial eyewitness account to the stage. As clouds of far-right authoritarianism gather across the globe, and immigrants are once again cynically demonized, The Passenger feels much more relevant than anybody would wish. It is both an urgent lesson from history, and theatre of the highest quality.
