Continuing their Passion Plays festival with this second in a series of three works, IN Series this past weekend featured Passio, a work produced by Maribeth Diggle and Lucie de Saint Vincent. This is a work with music and words created entirely by the cast. As Executive Director David Mack explained before the performance, Passio is meant to show us that performers are not just interpreters of others’ work but also have voices of their own. I also gathered, given that this work was born of international collaboration, that it reflects IN Series’ mission of supporting artists worldwide.
The show began with the performers entering in darkness with individual red lights. Recorded narration played over some very nice harmonies with the cast turned away from the audience, talking about how a Passion is a sacrifice and asking the question: Does sacrifice have to mean death?
What followed was the performers telling their own Passion stories, different stories of sufferings. Tina Chancey was first, impressively playing her cello while delivering a monologue. Here I loved the coordination between the narration and the cello. It followed the monologue’s cadence, tempo, and pacing. Then the cast joined Chancey in her lively song about aging, with Alejandra Borzyk playing a mean sax solo. I appreciated how everyone onstage joined in the singing, even the music director.
Laïla Amezian’s Passion was about how becoming a singer was a sacrifice that ultimately resulted in freedom. She talked about how becoming a singer went against her family’s wishes and how love is in itself a passion as well as a sacrifice. How true for performers, as they deal with balancing love of family with love of music all the time.
Lucie de Saint Vincent’s Passion was about childbirth, which she called “The Passion of their [woman’s] body to give birth to another human body.” Much like Chancey’s monologue with cello, I liked the piano accompaniment to the monologue.
Maribeth Diggle’s Passion was about child loss, and here the cast got to create some cool tableaus. Rajna Swaminathan followed her and showcased her virtuosity with the mrindangam, combining her monologue with Carnatic singing.
Joyce J. Scott’s monologue and song was the highlight of the afternoon. She is hilarious and had many gems of wisdom to share, among them: “Never let anyone ruin you.” “Love and beauty are my weapons and humor is my shield.” “Just be human, and don’t let anyone squelch your glee.” “Love is not a luxury, but fear is the tax we pay when we are unwilling to give or accept love.” Here again, the rest of the cast joined in with some cool harmonies underneath her bluesy solo. She also approximated the sound of the saxophone in her duet with it, which was worthy of applause in itself.
Musically, this show was quite soulful, even funky, and not quite avant-garde. There were some points where it felt improvised, and in general I liked the interesting blend of instrumentation: piano, sax, voice, strings, and mridangam. A long interlude with no dialogue but music with wordless singing followed de Saint Vincent’s Passion, and it got me thinking that this work is more a piece of musical theatre than an opera as we would normally think of it, especially considering the amplification that was used (although there was more than one moment where Diggle’s voice resonated unamplified). I like that this is an honest, artistic discussion of womanhood, and I like that it shows womanhood at different life stages. That said, having texts and translations to reference would have been immensely helpful. When I couldn’t understand what was being said and had no way of knowing what was being said, I felt disconnected from the performance. In order to make something accessible as a performer, one needs to think about the audience and meet them where they are. I’m not sure that that was done in this case; the piece seemed performer-centric instead of audience-centric. Sometimes it wasn’t totally clear why different vocal styles (e.g. opera vs. a more belty musical theatre style) were chosen over others, though I think it had to do with the performers’ identities since these were very personal stories and therefore they created music that fit their own musical background and sound-worlds, which is quite brilliant. Suffice to say that all of these performers are supremely talented, and bravi to them for daring to create something so original. May we all take such a chance when it comes to us.
Maggie Ramsey
Passio
Music and text created by the entire cast
Cast and Production Staff:
Alejandra Borzyk; Laïla Amezian; Rajna Swaminathan; Tina Chancey; Joyce J. Scott
Stage Direction & Soprano – Maribeth Diggle; Musical Direction & Piano – Lucie de Saint Vincent; Dramaturgy – Gaia Saitta; Lighting Design – Trinity Joseph; Stage Manager & Lightboard Operator – Mikayla Talbert
Dupont Underground, Washington, D.C., March 15, 2026
Top image: (L to R) Lucie de Saint Vincent, Alejandra Borzyk, and Tina Chancey
All photos by Sergei Shauchenka