Passing Strange On Broadway: Update! Preview Review

I had the fortunate opportunity to go to the Belasco Theater last night and see Passing Strange on Broadway Preview. I have never reviewed a Broadway Musical before so I don’t want to over state it, but IT WAS AWESOME.
Congratulations to Stew and Cast and Crew for bringing one of the most original and relevant performances on broadway today.

There I said it.

Passing Strange is a story of a young black man fighting against the construct ( I’m not sure what that means but the theme is repeated throughout the play). More simply put, it is about a young man trying to find his place in the world. Even more simply put it is a story about a young man trying to find his voice.
This is a very common motif, one that can easily be related to by anyone in the audience.

His search takes him from South Central Los Angeles in a middle class up bringing where he rails against the establishment (i.e church) . Only to find the hypocrasy of organized religion while he gets high in his choir directors car who tell the youth that to really live life you have to go to Amsterdam. There he indulges the boheamian lifestyle and mind altering self discovery. Then to Berlin to explore the existentialism, which can’t be to difficult to feel like a stranger being from south central LA and living in a country that was bred from the cold war.

It is very difficult not to make comparisons to Spring Awakening here. The two plays share a great deal including youthful self discovery and lighting director Kevin Adams. Where as Spring Awakening set in 19th century German and deals heavy in masturbation, death and back alley abortions, Passing Strange has “adult issues” however highlight’s them in a more contemporary manner which I believe will speak to the audience. Especially the 20 something audience.

With the songs themselves Stew and Heidi have done something I wished could be done for a long time which is to realize the story that they have sung about. The Negro Problem and Stew’s solo work has always been about story telling.There are few contemporaries in this field with due respect to Bruce Springsteen and The Hold Steady ( Craig and Tad should consider a play about Holly).

You should probably see this play soon so you can be one of the early adopters of this work.

A great story told with great rock music.