Review: PASSAGE at Bottle Alley Theatre

From July 17 through August 1, Bottle Alley Theatre Company presents PASSAGE, an original devised work performed at Smelt House, an intimate performance venue on Austin's East Side. Co-written, co-devised, and originally performed by Will Gibson Douglas, Brooke Eden, Rosalind Faires, Franny Harold, Marian Kansas, Katy Matz, Ronan Melomo, N.R. Oglesby, and Brennan Patrick, and directed by Sarah Hogestyn, PASSAGE embraces everything Bottle Alley is known for: independent, experimental, honest, risk-taking theatre created in found spaces.

The story follows the nine crew members of the Aquarius 300 as they search for a Second Earth. Their mission is interrupted when the ship is caught in the inescapable pull of a black hole, forcing them to confront not only the possibility of death, but questions of love, loss, memory, guilt, faith, and what remains of our humanity when everything familiar begins to slip away.

One of the joys of PASSAGE is that its deeper themes don't announce themselves immediately. They surface gradually, much like they do in our own lives. Where are the black holes that pull at us? Do we rush toward them? Fight desperately against them? Try to skim the edge and hope we escape? What parts of ourselves do we forget as we drift toward them?

The play continually returns to our need for one another. Sometimes that need looks like balancing another person's dogma or difficult personality. Sometimes it looks like fragile new love. Sometimes it is two wounded people reaching toward each other through betrayal, grief, addiction, or loneliness, not always knowing whether they are helping or hurting each other. The play also wrestles with persistent faith practices that exist within community, sometimes embraced with hope and sometimes regarded with suspicion. Perhaps most unsettling is the realization that wherever humanity goes—even across the stars—we may simply carry both our greatest strengths and our own destruction with us. Every destination is not hospitable. How do we keep moving toward the next horizon without being consumed by what lies behind us?

Sarah Hogestyn's direction wisely trusts both the script and the actors. Rather than pushing the science fiction context, she continually grounds the production in human relationships. Each performer is given room to reveal the heart of their character, allowing the audience to become invested long before the larger philosophical questions take center stage.

The script, devised by the ensemble, is dramatic, but also unexpectedly funny. I found myself laughing at clever jokes, terrible jokes, awkward exchanges, absurd moments, and even a few perfectly timed facial expressions. There is a wonderfully campy, almost 1970s or early 1980s science-fiction flavor throughout that recalls early Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica, while still exploring deeply contemporary questions about identity, faith, memory, and human connection.

Amber Lackey's Captain Julie carries quiet presence. Even when she sits silently in the corner of the room, she commands our attention. Lackey communicates the crushing weight of leadership alongside Julie's struggle to remain connected to her crew while simultaneously distancing herself from them. Beneath that authority lies someone desperately trying to remember the things that matter most.

Brennan Patrick's Commander Eli is equally compelling. Patrick possesses the kind of physical presence that naturally fills the room, yet tempers it with warmth and compassion. Eli's love for Julie feels genuine, but beneath that relationship lives a complicated family story whose lessons he desperately clings to as memory begins to fail.

Andrew Solis brings tremendous energy to Tex, the navigator. Bold, loud, opinionated, and occasionally abrasive, Tex is never afraid to call people—or dogma—exactly what he thinks they are. Yet beneath all that swagger is remarkable intelligence and surprising tenderness. Tex remembers the details that connect other people, even when he claims not to care about those things himself. Ironically, it is also his confidence and hubris that ultimately steer the crew into catastrophe.

As Father Peter, Spencer Kasselman-Spinola portrays a clergyperson wrestling with deconstruction and perhaps reconstruction. Peter often becomes the person through whom the crew confronts guilt, loneliness, shame, and hope. His faith is neither simplistic nor preachy, but an ongoing conversation with uncertainty.

Katie Henderson gives Nora, the first pilot, a quiet confidence. Initially subdued, Nora gradually reveals unexpected emotional depth as her relationship with the ship's doctor unfolds. Henderson allows those discoveries to emerge naturally rather than forcing them. 

Gabrielle Smith is wonderfully compassionate as Viv, the ship's doctor. Through physicality, vocal warmth, and understated expression, Smith creates exactly the kind of physician anyone would hope to encounter. Viv's own emotional journey—from caregiver to the surprised recipient of another's affection—becomes one of the production's most tender and joyful storylines.

Liz Stratton's Sam, the ship's mechanic, is perhaps the most heartbreaking character aboard the Aquarius 300. A recovering addict who remains haunted by dependency, Sam is transparent, brilliant, vulnerable, and painfully authentic. Their relationship with Britt raises complicated questions about whether love heals us or simply enables us to repeat old patterns.

Haylee Myers plays Britt with boldness, humor, and just enough recklessness. Britt embraces life at full speed while avoiding the deeper realities of addiction and accountability. Myers makes Britt both frustrating and deeply sympathetic.

Hatlyn Barricklow nearly steals the show as Helper Bot 7. Through recordings that preserve the crew's fading memories, Helper Bot 7 becomes the keeper of everyone's most vulnerable, shameful, joyful, and deeply human moments. As the crew gradually forgets who they are, the robot slowly discovers what it means to connect with them. Barricklow delivers impeccable comedic timing while also creating one of the evening's most touching emotional arcs, particularly in the recurring scenes shared with Sam. There is something wonderfully recognizable in watching a machine awkwardly learn affection.

The production takes place inside Smelt House, a remarkably intimate venue seating about 32 audience members on two opposing sides of the playing space. There is virtually no separation between audience and actors. Tiny control stations with colorful buttons become the ship's bridge. A center table transforms into the medical bay. The rear wall, covered in pipes, panels, and cables, serves as engineering. Near the entrance, the captain's station becomes a place where Julie quietly wrestles with leadership, regret, and responsibility.

The costumes are intentionally simple—NASA-inspired jumpsuits with American flags and personalized name tags—but those small differences in the handwritten, printed, taped, and unevenly attached labels subtly reinforce each character's individuality.

Will Fynes' atmospheric score relies heavily on looping synthesized textures that feel appropriately otherworldly. The music frequently underscores the production's recurring memory monologues, moments when characters struggle to remember who they are and what remains important to them. Occasionally the score distracts from the dialogue, but overall it supports the play's emotional and contextual landscape.

Luis Sandoval's lighting design takes advantage of the unconventional performance space, with fixtures tucked into corners and unexpected locations rather than a traditional overhead grid. Frequent fades gently guide the audience through shifts in time and memory while reminding us that we occupy the same fragile world as the actors.
I'll admit that when I first walked into the room, saw the modest props, and took in the tiny performance space, I wondered whether a science-fiction story could really come to life here. For the first few minutes, I remained a little skeptical. It didn't last. Very quickly, the characters pulled me into their lives, and long before intermission I found myself deeply invested in every member of the crew.

There is tremendous courage in devised theatre. When it succeeds, it can touch nearly every corner of the human experience, and PASSAGE does exactly that. It explores love, grief, shame, guilt, faith, memory, curiosity, addiction, and the fragile ways we hold onto one another while asking questions that refuse easy answers.

Without giving away the ending, PASSAGE left me wondering what happens next, and that is always one of my favorite places to leave a theatre. Where are we going as humanity? Who in our own circles is struggling without our noticing? Who loves us without our realizing it? Where do shame, guilt, and rigid certainty pull us into narrow places where we cannot fully live? And so many other wonderings.

If you have the chance, go see this funny, campy, surprisingly moving production. It may make you laugh. It may tug at a heartstring. Most importantly, it may send you back into the world carrying a few wonderings of your own.

PASSAGE
Original co-writers, co-devisers, and performers: Will Gibson Douglas, Brooke Eden, Rosalind Faires, Franny Harold, Marian Kansas, Katy Matz, Ronan Melomo, N.R. Oglesby, and Brennan Patrick.
Theater Company: Bottle Alley Theatre

Venue: Smelt House, 2511 E. 6th St., Austin, 78702 

July 17-Aug 1, Thursdays-Sundays, 8:00 pm

Running Time: 90 minutes, one 15-minute intermission

Tickets: $20-25

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