| . | 03/27/2008
PASSING STRANGE
By: Eugene Paul
Stew Photo credit: Michal Daniel
Transferring to Broadway from a sold out run at the Public Theater, Passing Strange has been waging a publicity campaign emphasizing its strangeness, from title to content, which is pretty strange as a way to find its audience uptown because the strange thing is – it isn’t strange at all. Unless you consider rock and roll on Broadway strange, which would be pretty strange, especially this season.
Passing Strange is a superbly performed rock and roll concert of original music composed by the artist known as Stew with Heidi Rosewald, joined to Stew’s book and lyrics chronicling the saga of a young, black man looking for his inner truth, a journey that takes him to the fleshpots of Amsterdam and Berlin. The youth (excellent Daniel Breaker) finds Amsterdam profoundly meaningful – until it’s not. Then, he takes himself to Berlin. There, his frustrated urge to rebel comes to full bloom and Berlin becomes his home, at last. He’s 21. He belongs. Until his sweet, beautiful, endlessly patient mother calls one last time from Los Angeles, his former home: come home, she pleads. He does not, until it’s too late. He channels her death into his music but not into his feelings. And we are left with the question: was it worth it?
Photo credit: Carol Rosegg
The story, obviously, is almost classic in its elements, to put it kindly. But the telling! The telling is all. We are grabbed from the outset. Stew – he’s also the narrator of what is clearly an autobiographical account – is surrounded by an extraordinary cast, every one of them adding immeasurably to the show, which is necessary as all get out because Stew, narrator, is always on stage and almost always performing. He is good; he has a certain charisma which would project winningly in a small club. He’s in deep water here. But – he has some of the best rock and roll musicians I have ever heard, Jon Spurney, Christian Cassan, Christian Gibbs and composer Heidi Rosewald. They never leave the stage: set designer David Korins ingeniously sinks them into individual pods; their playing is all but constant and they build each number through the classic rock and roll stages: upping the volume higher and higher and repeating a phrase over and over until it becomes a rock and roll mantra that shakes the entire theater. You are immersed, part of the music. You may not remember any of it but never mind, there’s another, and another shaping the cumulative effect which is liberating and captivating at the same time. Throughout, Stew remains a calm center, his lyrics peppered with positively epigrammatical wisdoms. You wish you could hear each one over, close up, but they’re gone. Stew’s awareness is total; he knows he isn’t Broadway, nor is his show. Then, just for kicks, after he’s baldly said he doesn’t know how to write a show tune, he goes ahead and does it. “The Black One” is exactly that and a home run. However, the catharsis of Stew is never completed; at the abrupt end, he knows he hasn’t found the answer.
Not only Daniel Breaker but also Colman Domingo, De’Adre Aziza, Eisa Davis, Chad Goodridge, Rebecca Naomi Jones are all gifted, beautiful artists. Set designer David Korins gives them stunning support, as does lighting designer Kevin Adams and sound designer Tom Morse. Annie Dersen has directed all into an organic experience quite unlike any other on the Great White Way. Which may be the point.
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Passing Strange. At the Belasco Theater, 112 W. 44th St. Tues 7 pm. Wed-Sat 8 pm. Wed-Sat Mats 2 pm. Sun mat 3 pm. Tickets:$26.50-$111.50. 212-239-6200.
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