PARIS.- Badly injured from a fight, a man wakes up in the Calais Jungle, a ramshackle camp for migrants in northern France. His memory is gone, and all he has on him is an Eritrean passport with the name “Issa.”
That’s the premise of Alexis Michalik’s brisk, effective new play “Passport,” which was greeted with a standing ovation last weekend in Paris. Until it was demolished in 2016, the overcrowded Jungle encampment stood as a symbol of Europe’s refugee crisis, which hasn’t entirely subsided. While the site itself is gone, migrants still regularly attempt to cross the English Channel from the Calais area and reach Britain.
Many in the French theater world publicly supported the people living in the Jungle, and a handful of small-scale productions in France took the camp as inspiration. Still, the first major play about it came from Britain, in 2017: Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson’s immersive “The Jungle” was inspired by the directors’ time in Calais, where they set up a theater with migrants. It went on to become a trans-Atlantic hit, and was revived last year at St. Ann’s Warehouse in the New York City borough of Brooklyn.
In some ways, Michalik was an unlikely name to follow suit. A star of the commercial theater sector in France, he has built his reputation on accessible, fast-paced comedy dramas like “Edmond,” a “Shakespeare in Love”-style spin on the life of French playwright Edmond Rostand. His last stage endeavor was a French-language adaptation of the Mel Brooks musical “The Producers.”
Yet Michalik has tiptoed into heavier subject matters in recent years — first with “Intra Muros,” a play set in a maximum-security prison, then with “A Love Story,” which centered on a lesbian couple’s IVF journey.
“Passport,” which is playing at the Théâtre de la Renaissance through June 30, wades even more openly into current political battles in France, where immigration restrictions have been at the forefront of President Emmanuel Macron’s agenda. In response, Michalik, who wrote and directed the play, invokes the audience’s empathy. “Imagine if a war started here, in your country,” one actor tells us near the beginning. “Your life is threatened, so logically, you decide to leave.”
We then meet Issa (sensitively played by Jean-Louis Garçon), who has been beaten up so badly inside the Jungle that recovery is uncertain. In a series of quick scenes, a well-meaning aid worker takes him to the hospital, then back to the camp. With no memory of his life before the accident, you’d expect Issa’s prospects there to be bleak. Yet a jester-like character from India, Arun (the ebullient Kevin Razy), magically appears to find him a job and save the day.
There are a number of similarly improbable plot turns in “Passport.” Alongside Issa, the play also follows Lucas, a young Black police officer who grew up in Calais, whose job is to stop migrants hiding in the back of Britain-bound trucks. The two story lines ultimately collide in a happy denouement.
Realism is clearly not the goal here: Michalik is an entertainer who loves a dramatic twist, and “Passport” showcases his ability to keep a narrative moving. Basic set elements are wheeled or carried on and off at breakneck speed, and video projections help situate the characters, who waltz through a series of locations: Issa, Arun and a third character, a Syrian migrant named Ali, are taken by bus to a French village they know nothing about, then travel to Paris to look for illicit work.
For some viewers, Issa’s fairly rosy path may grate, in light of migrants’ real-life difficulties. He gets refugee status in France after parroting an invented back story; he also turns out to be a gifted cook, and wines and dines a banker who agrees on the spot to bankroll the opening of a restaurant.
Yet in France, where politically sensitive topics are typically left to highbrow, publicly funded playhouses and the commercial sector focuses on lighter fare, “Passport” offers an intriguing middle way. And Michalik’s reach is considerable: His play “Edmond” celebrated 1,500 performances in the fall.
For “Passport” to address the touchy issue of racism in French society head-on is no small matter. Onstage, Lucas’ adoptive white father is a xenophobic nightmare at a family dinner, a scene that Michalik makes both funny and familiar. The diverse characters offer a range of perspectives on multiculturalism: As Lucas, who is reluctant to talk about race, Christopher Bayemi cuts a strikingly conflicted figure, while Ysmahane Yaqini brings lighthearted energy to the role of Yasmine, Issa’s love interest, a French-born librarian of North African descent.
Michalik favors directness over subtlety, so there are awkward lines here and there. Yet “Passport” remains a brave endeavor, crafted with heart. Eight years after the Calais Jungle was officially demolished, Michalik has now sneaked it into popular theater. Time will tell if it has staying box-office power.
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‘Passport’: Through June 30 at the Théâtre de la Renaissance, in Paris, France; theatredelarenaissance.com.
This article originally appeared in
The New York Times.
