A young black musician travels on a picaresque journey to rebel against his mother and his upbringing in a church-going, middle-class, late 1970′s South Central Los Angeles neighborhood in order to find “the real”. He finds new experiences in promiscuous Amsterdam, with its easy access to drugs and sex, and in artistic, chaotic, political Berlin, where he struggles with ethics and integrity when he misrepresents his background as poor to get ahead. Along with his “passing” from place to place and from lover to lover, the young musician moves through a number of musical styles from a background of gospel to punk, and then blues, jazz, and rock.
Directed by Spike Lee.
Cast: De’Adre Aziza, Daniel Breaker, Eisa Davis, Colman Domingo, Chad Goodridge, Rebecca Naomi Jones, and Stew.
After playing Berkeley and then on Broadway, PBS brings “Passing Strange” out on August 21. Here it is from Stew’s own words, from an interview he gave The Gothamist in April of 2008. John Del Signore is asking the questions, and they are indeed questions that come across everyone’s minds as they see this performance.
For those who haven’t seen it, what’s the title about? We got it from Othello. A dramaturg at the Public Theater gave me a graphic novel version of Othello. I was just checking out this one section and the phrase ‘passing strange’ was used; it meant ‘very strange’ or ‘beyond strange.’ And I just thought it was a perfect phrase, because for me it meant the passing of time, it meant passing through cities, it meant the kind of passing that Americans do to pretend they’re something else. When I say Americans it’s because I think white people pass just as much as black people do. I don’t mean like racially pass but in terms of the masks people use in whatever subcultures they might dip into. Slumming is like passing for me. There are heiresses on the Lower East Side; there always have been. When I was living on the Lower East Side in 1983 sometimes I’d get in a taxi with some girl and she’d say, ‘We’re going to my place.’ And I’d think we’d be going to somewhere like 14th Street or 23rd Street or 34th Street, and we would end up somewhere on Park Avenue. So people have always been slumming, they’ve always been passing. Even in their own community, you know.
Passing Strange has to do with a character named Youth from black middle-class Los Angeles who leaves home and dives into the sex, drugs and art squats of 1980s Amsterdam and Berlin. A lot of that is based on experiences from your own life, right? Yeah, exactly, they are based on. The play is not an accurate illustration of exactly what happened in my life but it’s based on and inspired by things that happened in my life. Everything on stage that happens I can point to some corresponding moment in my life. But it’s not like a documentary by any means.
From Los Angeles to Amsterdam to Berlin and back, “Passing Strange” takes musical theater on a whole new trip. From singer-songwriter and performance artist Stew comes “Passing Strange”, a daring new musical that takes you on a journey across boundaries of place, identity and theatrical convention. Stew, a popular performer at Joe’s Pub, was commissioned by The Public Theater of New York to develop this heartfelt and hilarious story of a young bohemian who charts a course for “the real” through sex, drugs and rock and roll. Loaded with soulful lyrics and overflowing with passion, the show takes us from black, middle-class America to Amsterdam, Berlin and beyond on a journey towards personal and artistic authenticity.
A stripped down version of “Work The Wound”, performed on “Theater Talk”
The music and lyrics in this play are all beautiful, thoughtful, clever and timeless. If you hate musicals, see this. You may still hate musicals afterwards, but you will have witnessed a unique piece of art. This is a play that brings back great memories of joy and pain, if you’ve been living, and great jealous regrets if you haven’t.
Here’s the trailer, via TrailerAddict, for the film, which gives you a really good idea of what to expect:
(h/t ShadowAndAct)
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