"Celibacy is the only sane response to a world gone wild. My porno films feature fully clothed men making business deals."

I haven't had the mental capacity to post on anything too brainy recently. Work is busy and annoying, which unfortunately leaves me in a mood to post more about Travolta's embarassing antics than about the state of American Theater. However, I have to take a break from the fluffernutter to talk about my new favorite show, Passing Strange.


Comparisons between Passing Strange and Spring Awakening are kind of inevitable - they both are about youth, growing up, and challenging authority, they both have hot lighting by Kevin Adams, and they both not only have rock scores, but succeed in actually rocking.

However, where Spring Awakening is tight and purposeful, Passing Strange is loose, messy, and interpretive - and all the more engaging for it. The story follows an African-American teenager as he gets the hell out of Dodge (Dodge being beige-colored suburban LA), finds passion in music, and experiments with art, revolution, sex, music, and love. His search for love, understanding, and "the real" is set against the backdrop of Amsterdam and Berlin in the 1970's, when words like freedom and love and revolution were said with passion and without irony.

Daniel Breaker plays Youth, with a small ensemble representing everyone from his mother's conservative church friends, to the free thinkers of Amsterdam's hash bars, to the bizarre anarchists of Berlin's artistic underworld. The entire ensemble is really, really remarkable. They use different accents, movement, choreography, all kinds of stuff that could smack of grad-school interpretive acting class, and make it communicate in an completely authentic, never schticky way. Props also go to movement coordinator Karole Armitage who doubtless played an important role in keeping the movement organic and central to the storytelling.

The conducter of the train is Stew, the co-creator, narrator, and band front man who has the perspective needed to tell this story of his own youth with gravity, wisdom, charm, and humor. He also is a powerful performer who rallies the audience, transforming us from a room full of strangers into a community in a way that I've honestly never experienced in a theater.


As is sometimes the case with shows like this that evolve out of a non-theater idea, and take non-traditional routes with storytelling, the show is a bit patchy. The momentum chugs along, but is occasionally derailed by an extraneous plot turn or narration when there should be action. But between the poetry, depth, and humor of the piece, and the kick-ass cast, Passing Strange is pretty transcendent. Don't miss it.