Concept by James Baldwin

"Passing Strange" at the Belasco Theatre, May 17, 2008

(Photo credit: Carol Rosegg)

After an acclaimed run at Joe's Pub at the Public Theatre downtown, this rock cantata by the singly-named Stew has opened on Broadway to good notices. There has been much talk that the show hasn't "found its audience" yet, but based on the full house last Saturday night, somebody's catching on. I did track that the audience demographics were sharply different from that of the cast.

The story is Stew's memoir from high school through early adulthood. Stew, who serves as narrator and chorus in his own tale, frequently plays with audience expectations. Early on, he turns them on end when he interrupts his mother's (Eisa Davis) first appearance to correct the "black version" to his more accurate middle class upbringing in Los Angeles. His younger self, only described as Youth (Daniel Breaker) bristles under his mother's love and desire for him to find his way in the world. She manages to force him into the church choir, but he dashes off to Europe at the first opportunity to experience the world and find his art.

Amsterdam, with the hash/coffee houses comes too easy for him. He's taken under wing by the locals who open the world of love and sex to him. If it's art, doesn't it have to require suffering? So he then moves on to Berlin, "a black hole with taxis." Now living in an artists' commune of sorts, home continues to reach out to him as his mother calls. She wants him home for Christmas. He pulls away again, looking forward to a new kind of holiday with the angst-loving roommates. When he announces he has a new song cycle to present to them for Christmas, they all are going home to their families for the holiday. The message is that family, no matter how crazy they make you, are a part you can't remove from your art.

I found it interesting that Stew adopted Mr. Baldwin's concept of "passing" as the foundation for his show. At first Youth is passing as an angry young teen, rebelling against the mother who loves him unconditionally. In Amsterdam, he's passing as more sophisticated and worldly than he really is. In Berlin, he's passing as the angry, ghetto, black man, repressed by the capitalist white society of the U.S. All along, he's passing as a young man in denial of how important his family, his mother, is to him. Only when she dies, can he realize his wasted effort in all the passing of his life.

As an evening of music, it's a rock concert with all the overpowering amplification you might expect. Sadly, a lot of the story gets lost in the ear-pounding volume. Musically, Stew has found some theatricality, notably in a riff on "Tea for Two" as part of "We Just Had Sex." I also thought it interesting that of all the performers on the stage, including the musicians/backup singers, Stew seemed to exhibit the least visible passion when he sang.

The supporting cast of four, de'Adre Aziza, Colman Domingo, Chad Goodridge and Rebecca Naomi Jones play the various people who came through Stew's life. Ms. Aziza, last seen in Playwrights Horizons' mediocre "Doris to Darlene" shows how the power of good material and a good director can bring out the best in an actor. Director Annie Dorsen has cleverly staged this cantata, creating mood and atmosphere with merely a couple of chairs. She gets remarkable performances from the entire cast, ranging from back-pew trouble makers at church, to Dutch stoners, to German nihilists.

I have described this show as a rock cantata. It's not a traditional musical in any sense of the word, even less so than last season's "Spring Awakening." (Kevin Adams' lighting does bear a resemblance to his Tony-winning turn from SA - suitable for the concert staging.) Story is told as much in song, divided between Stew's narration and the actors' performances. Still, I can easily see next month's Tony Awards honoring this production with Best Musical. (Don't forget Susan Stroman's "Contact" winning the award several years ago with hardly a song sung.) Though I haven't seen "In The Heights" yet, "Passing Strange" is the best new musical I've seen on Broadway this season.

Starwatch: Former Public Theatre director George C. Wolfe in the audience

Saving Captain Stanhope

"Journey's End" at the Belasco Theatre, February 13, 2007

Following a successful revival in London, R. C. Sherriff's "Journey's End" has been revived at the Belasco. Written in 1928, it's a powerful indictment of war, following the days leading up to a WWI battle in the trenches in France. All the class delineations of the British miltary are intact, officers "upstairs" and enlisted "downstairs" although their physical locations are reversed in the trench fortifications. There's also a certain reversal of age too, higher ranked officers are recent university graduates and lower-level officers from the professional class of older men.

Captain Stanhope (Hugh Dancy) has been commanding his unit in this location for nearly 3 years. The experience and stress have taken their toll and he fuels his courage and hides his terror in whiskey. Mr. Dancy, making his Broadway debut gives terrific intensity and self-torture in this role, originated by no less than Lawrence Olivier.

Rotating in for a six-day tour is Lieutenant Osborne (Boyd Gaines). A school master, everyone refers to him as "Uncle." Mr. Gaines masks Osborne's fear in devotion to the young officers he supports, giving him a bit of a Michael Redgrave flavor. Nice job with the accent, I thought.

Jefferson Mays returns to Broadway for the first time since his tour-de-force performance in "I Am My Own Wife" as the officer's cook, Private Mason. Mr. Mays doesn't mince nearly as much here, but does give us a bit of the fey British simp.

2nd Lieutenant Trotter is a bit of a stock character, large, blustering but benign and caring as delivered by John Ahlin.

As Raleigh, Stark Sands (also making his Broadway debut) brings the needed youthful innocence as Stanhope's childhood friend to this fatal character. There is a fuzzy line about which one could wonder what the extent of the relationship exactly was between Raleigh and Stanhope. Stanhope had been linked with Raleigh's sister prior to joining the war, but is his affection for Raleigh a sublimation of his love for the sister or is his affection for the sister a sublimation of his love for Raleigh?

Dancy's Stanhope is nearly devastated over having to decide which of his officers must make a dangerous raid on the German entrenchment on the other side of the 70-yard wide no-man's-land that separates the two sides. His near-disintegration over the decision is heart-breaking.

Jonathan Fensom's set and costumes are eerily accurate. One could almost smell the earth of the underground bunker, complete with dirt floor and mud puddles. Jason Taylor's lights, seeming a bit too dim at first, did support the darkness in which these men were forced to flounder. It was Gregory Clarke's overwhelmingly effective sound design that brought the reality of war into the theatre. The bombing of the German attack in Act II wa truly frightening.

It's interesting to see how the truths of the human side of war is portrayed onstage. Such has gone on since the time of the Greeks. Such folly that recognizing it changes nothing in the "real world."