ON THE RIGHT TRACK

The 7 Fingers (Les 7 Doigts), a Montréal-based circus arts company, brings 90 spellbinding minutes of exhibitions of strength, flexibility, coordination, balance, courage, timing, and trust to the A.R.T.’s Loeb Drama Center in Passengers. The 7 Fingers collaborated with A.R.T.’s 2012 production of Pippin and have performed on numerous occasions at Boston’s Arts Emerson. In 2019, in fact, The 7 Fingers performed Passengers at Arts Emerson, raising the question or questions: Why A.R.T.? Why now?

photo by Grace Gershenfeld

Whatever the answer to those questions, the fact remains that Passengers is in town again, and it’s a spectacle well worth seeing. Written, directed, and choreographed by Shana Carroll, Passengers is a procession of acrobatic and gymnastic feats loosely held together by a series of train metaphors expressed through sound (Colin Gagné with Jérôme Guilleaume), video projections (Johnny Ranger), and scenic design (Ana Cappelluto). The show opens with ten people seated in a semi-circle, audibly breathing — inhaling and then exhaling — together.

Their meditative breaths transform to become rhythmic huffings and puffings, the kinds of sounds children might make while pretending to be a train, and the ten performers arrange their chairs in rows of two. They sway like train passengers to the beat of mechanical sounds and then rise from their seats to begin their acrobatics — rolling on the floor, back flipping, tossing one another in the air — as the mechanical sounds continue.

photo by Lucille Audoineau-Maire

Now however, a plaintive cello and a contemplative piano overpower the mechanical sounds. Yes, these instruments seem to say: we are being carried along by a mighty engine, but our emphasis won’t be on the means of travel, but on the human beings making the journey.

From there we are carried along through a series of acts of remarkable physical and psychological prowess: multiple hoops spinning so fast they become a blur (Méliejade Tremblay-Bouchard); a plethora of balls not only in the air but sliding along his arms and across his shoulders (Santiago Rivera Laugerud); and the heart-stopping leaps of acrobatic flyer Marie-Christine Fournier.

photo by Grace Gershenfeld

Defying gravity as well as description, other cast members use an every-changing collection of ropes, poles, pulleys, and one another to astonish and delight with their swinging, sliding, climbing, and balancing at improbable heights in what appear to be impossible postures.

The uncommonly arresting music (composer and musical director Colin Gagné) adds to the dreamlike ambience and sense of a voyage through its use of haunting cello, violins, piano, drums, and other percussion in compositions that draw on the rhythms and musical vocabulary of folk, swing, Latin hip-hop, tango, chanson, classical, and electronic trance.

photo by Sébastien Lozé

Snippets of narration invite reflection on the reasons for train travel, the experience of being on a train, on Einstein’s train in which time slows and expands, and finally on the “stories we were never told”: stories of journeys without a beginning, middle, or end; stories of trains that never arrive at their destinations but that simply slam on their brakes and stop, like Téo Le Baut, sliding down the Chinese Pole head first and managing to stop when his head is just inches from the floor.

Thus Passengers comes to an end, but the journey continues: we are left to contemplate the potential of human skill and courage, as well as the ability of people to work together to create something truly remarkable.

photo by Sébastien Lozé

Passengers
American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) at Harvard University
Loeb Drama Center in Harvard Square, 64 Brattle St in Cambridge
90 minutes with no intermission
ends on September 26, 2025
for tickets (from $43), visit A.R.T.

for more shows, visit Theatre in Boston