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| From | mogleyb@aol.com |
| Subject | And The Lambs Take Over Broadway Stew and Heidi On Broadway |
| Date | Fri, 29 Feb 2008 01:20:54 -0500 |
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excuse the link
it may be easier to just to search and go
http://theater2.nytimes.com/2008/02/29/theater/reviews/29stra.html?ex=1361941200&en=9be7582a6e62ea30&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
It's A Hard Rock Life
By CHARLES ISHERWOOD
Published: February 29, 2008
“At this point in the play, we were planning a show tune,†says the
roly-poly guy with the guitar and the funny eyeglasses. “An upbeat
gotta-leave-this-town kinda show tune.â€
It appears there’s a little problem. “We don’t know how to write those
kind of tunes,†he adds, in a tone of shrugging apology.
This may seem a bit strange, since the roly-poly guy with the guitar
and the funny eyeglasses happens to be standing on the stage of the
Belasco Theater, where the exuberant new show “Passing Strange†opened
on Thursday night.
But “Passing Strange†just ain’t a show tune kinda show, despite its
arrival at a venerable Broadway theater where many a
gotta-leave-this-town anthem has surely been sung. Although it is far
richer in wit, feeling and sheer personality than most of what is
classified as musical theater in the neighborhood around Times Square
these days, its big heart throbs to the sound of electric guitars,
searing synthesizer chords, driving drums and lyrics delivered not in a
clean croon but a throaty yelp.
A rock ’n’ roll autobiography of an artist in search of himself,
“Passing Strange†is bursting at the seams with melodic songs, and it
features a handful of theatrical performances to treasure. It is
undeniably playing on Broadway, after transferring from a summer run at
the Public Theater downtown.
But please don’t call it a Broadway musical. You could scare away too
many people who might actually enjoy it.
Call it a rock concert with a story to tell, trimmed with a lot of
great jokes. Or call it a sprawling work of performance art, complete
with angry rants and scary drag queens. Call it whatever you want,
really. I’ll just call it wonderful, and a welcome anomaly on Broadway,
which can use all the vigorous new artistic blood it can get.
The roly-poly guy is a singer-songwriter with a cult following who goes
by the single name of Stew. He is the author of the show’s book and
lyrics, the composer (with Heidi Rodewald) of its music, and its lead
guitarist and musical narrator too.
With his bald dome, goofy aspect and neat black suit worn with
sneakers, Stew does not look like anybody else on a New York stage at
the moment. He does not much resemble a scraggly-sexy emo pinup either.
This is entirely fitting, since his is the story of a young man
achingly out of place in the world, trying on poses and assuming new
guises in his quest for an identity that, as he will ultimately learn,
many artists can only find in their art.
This is not, to be sure, a story heretofore untold. Many a memoir has
charted the same emotional territory, of youthful angst, family
rebellion and spiritual awakening through sex, drugs and
self-obsession. Oops, I mean self-expression.
But as an African-American who grew up comfortably in Los Angeles,
where he defiantly cleaved to Zen Buddhism and punk rock, thumbing his
nose at church and Mom and the prospect of middle-class achievement,
Stew brings an invigorating new perspective to the classic
coming-of-age narrative.
He brings a gently satiric touch too. As Stew narrates the
semi-fictionalized story of his search for personal and aesthetic
fulfillment, which took him from the not-mean streets of Los Angeles to
the hash cafes of Amsterdam and the Berlin bars where bitter artists
plot assaults on mainstream culture, he provides comic footnotes and
musical annotation as his memories leap to life before him. Now and
then he slides those funky yellow-tinted eyeglasses up his forehead,
and interjects a wry observation as he looks on with a mixture of
affection and consternation at the callow youth he once was.
This jumpy character — in the text he is simply called Youth — is
portrayed by the sensational Daniel Breaker, whose performance has
grown tremendously since the Off Broadway run. Brimming with the nervy
energy of an ego itching to write its name on the world, Mr. Breaker
scampers around the stage with antic enthusiasm, eyes glowing with
righteous self-importance or popping with comic mortification. It is as
if the older Stew, restrained and reflective, is trying to keep in
check a cartoon version of himself that keeps straying from his grasp
and getting into trouble.
The men and women who help shape our hero’s destiny are portrayed by a
small ensemble of actors whose performances have also been subtly
scaled up to suit the Broadway stage. Colman Domingo is priceless in
two roles. As the jaded leader of a church choir in Act I he initiates
the young Stew into the rites of pot smoking and imperiously bestows on
him the privilege of being a stranger in his own skin. (“Black folks
passing for black folks,†his acolyte marvels. “That’s a trip!â€) In the
second act he enlivens a potentially clichéd spoof of performance art
with snarling ferociousness.
(Page 2 of 2)
Chad Goodridge and Rebecca Naomi Jones are equally fine as Stew’s
clueless fellow punk-band members, and, later, as his finicky mentors
in Euro-bohemianism, for whom the young Stew, in one of the show’s
brightest sequences, ineptly poses as the Oppressed American Black Man
he never was. (Mr. Breaker’s limber dash through 25 years of “Soul
Train†dance moves is priceless.)
Theater Review | 'Passing Strange': Look Back in Chagrin: A Rocker’s
Progress (May 15, 2007)
The radiant De’Adre Aziza is delightful as a self-possessed teenage
beauty queen urging the nerdy young Stew to “blacken up a bit.†And
Eisa Davis portrays with warmth and grace the mother Stew leaves
behind, to discover only too late how grievously final the parting
would be.
The show’s structure is loose, its mood informal, as song moves fluidly
into story on a bare stage lighted by Kevin Adams with his customary
subtle insight. (Mr. Adams and the set designer David Korins
collaborated on the spectacular wall of neon advertising the dazzling
allurements of Europe.) Some episodes are more engaging than others —
the romances feel a bit pro forma to me — but the musical is bound
together by the eloquence and power of the songs, played by the skilled
onstage band. (That’s Ms. Rodewald on bass and backing vocals).
Directed with finesse by Annie Dorsen (who created the show in
collaboration with Stew and Ms. Rodewald), “Passing Strange†struts
with a new vitality uptown. A bit shorter, a lot sharper, and infused
with the sense of occasion that the old mystique of Broadway — bless
its mercantile heart — can still bring to a theatrical event, it also
moved me as it had not downtown in its consideration of the hard
bargains that must be struck with life in order to pursue a career in
art.
If that sounds familiar, perhaps it is because the opening of “Passing
Strange†comes just a week after that of another Broadway musical about
an artist struggling to reconcile the demands of his vocation with his
duty to love. I suspect the Georges Seurat brought to life again in the
splendid new revival of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s “Sunday in
the Park With George†would find much in common with the sardonic
songwriter whose presence on a Broadway stage is every bit as unlikely.
As the painter sees life through the distancing prisms of color and
light, Stew looks at the people in his world and sees songs to be
written.
The Seurat of “Sunday†would surely understand Stew’s reflections on
the trouble this makes for the creatively obsessed. “People like me —
we feel like art is more real than life,†he says toward the end of the
show. The Sondheim Seurat would sympathize too with Stew’s response to
an unfathomable loss. He just picks up his guitar and gets ready to
rock onward, trying to “fill the void with song.â€
PASSING STRANGE
Book and lyrics by Stew; music by Stew and Heidi Rodewald; directed by
and created in collaboration with Annie Dorsen; choreography by Karole
Armitage; sets by David Korins; costumes by Elizabeth Hope Clancy;
lighting by Kevin Adams; sound by Tom Morse; music supervision and
orchestrations by Stew and Ms. Rodewald; music coordinator, Seymour Red
Press; production stage manager, Tripp Phillips; company manager, Kim
Sellon; associate producer, S. D. Wagner. Presented by the Shubert
Organization, Elizabeth Ireland McCann, Bill Kenwright, Chase Mishkin,
Barbara and Buddy Freitag, Broadway Across America, Emily Fisher
Landau, Peter May, Boyett Ostar, Elie Hirschfeld/Jed Bernstein, Wendy
Federman/Jackie Florin, Spring Sirkin/Ruth Hendel, Vasi Laurence/Pat
Flicker Addiss and Joey Parnes, in association with the Public Theater
and the Berkeley Repertory Theater. At the Belasco Theater, 111 West
44th Street, Manhattan; (212) 239-6200. Running time: 2 hours 10
minutes.
WITH: Stew (Narrator), Daniel Breaker (Youth), De’Adre Aziza
(Edwina/Marianna/Sudabey), Eisa Davis (Mother), Colman Domingo
(Franklin/Joop/ Mr. Venus), Chad Goodridge (Terry/Christophe/Hugo) and
Re
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