You'll see the difference before the lights even go down: The stage is set up like a rock concert, with stations holding guitars and synthesizers, backed by a full drum kit. The show's start is signaled not by lowering lights or rising curtains but by the band walking out to tune their instruments up.
The story told by the band’s front man (Stew, who manages to both electrify and ground the show) is more rock opera than musical theater. More pop-rock than prog-rock, it's not especially pioneering: an amiable tale about a middle-class black youth (a charming Daniel Breaker) getting bit by the music bug, fleeing his single mother and the ‘burbs of LA for the bohemian pleasures of Amsterdam and Berlin. His search follows a predictable path as he searches for his “real” self, but it allows for plenty of colorful rebels, drug use and (especially) free love that every rock journey requires.
The evening reaches its high point halfway through the first act. The front man vamps on his refrain of “Everything's Alright,” the guitars squeal over a thick bass solo, and the drums pound like they're announcing Jesus’ return from the dead. And the back stage opens wide to reveal a wall of fluorescent tubing blazing with light: It's a rock-'n'-roll revelation.
Stew also wrote the book, lyrics and music (helped here by bassist Heidi Rodewald). To go with his funky name, Stew has the build of a roly-poly bluesman and a sweet soul sound. Center stage, he half-sings/half-tells this tale from his mic, and the warmth in his voice reveals that he's really telling us his own life story.
As his stand-in, Daniel Breaker has a pleasant Everyman quality that makes you see why European chicks invite him into their beds— he'd inspire Medea's maternal instincts. This innate sympathy makes it all the more uncomfortable when he chafes at his own mother's request to return to L.A. to hear some bad news face-to-face. Her death may be wholly predictable, but it's also moving.
The climax, then, isn't about the youth at all. (Nor is it about being a black man, despite the title.) Rather, it's about Stew and his late mother. He uses theater to break the barrier between the living and the dead and apologizes to his mother for a teenager's mistakes. All the marvelous rock noise is reduced to a quiet moment, as an artist bares his soul to an audience. It's one of the most courageous moments you'll see in theater.
Irony would kill the situation. But there's plenty of that for fans of the sardonic: The supporting cast offers up moment after hilarious moment of European "hipness." In fact, those viewers who're worried about sentimentality should see this show just for the spectacle of a Broadway crowd applauding a black man (Colman Domingo) as he repeatedly screams “I let my pain fuck my ego!” in a German accent.
This ain't theater, it's rock ‘n’ roll.
And anyway, “Passing Strange” is a musical the way that whales are mammals: It may be true, but it sure doesn't look like it. That's probably why it's the best show on Broadway.
"Passing Strange" at the Belasco Theater (111 W. 44th St. between Broadway and Sixth Ave.). Tickets $26.50 - $111.50, 212 239-6200
