Passing Strange and some reminiscing...

                I have a confession to make: I’m not sure I really know what Passing Strange is about.  That in no way means I didn’t like it.  I took several classes in college which I really enjoyed but really understood little.  It felt like I was right back in a class on modern or postmodern literature.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

                Mere hours after seeing the Sunday matinee of Avenue Q with my mom, I ventured across town solo to the Studio Theatre to catch the evening performance of Passing Strange.  I made the terrible mistake of taking a nap between shows, so I was a little groggy.  I didn’t realize that Passing Strange would require me to bring my intellectual A-game.  But I was there, on the fourth floor of the Studio Theatre.  The Studio isn’t one of my usual haunts, but I saw Caroline, or Change there when I was an undergrad and I really enjoyed it.  This time, I was in their “black box” theater space, but I hasten to refer to it because it was neither black nor a box.  Nonetheless, it’s a flexible theater space with no fixed stage or seating, so I suppose it fits the bill.  I was a little distracted because it was cold there, and because sitting behind me was the director of the Signature Theatre’s production of [title of show], which I had loved so much.  I bet he thought I was a total creeper, especially since I was there by myself.

                But I digress.  So, before actually seeing the Studio’s production of Passing Strange, I knew very little about it.  I knew that the Donkey from Shrek the Musical was in it on Broadway and that in it, some guy goes to Amsterdam.  I was pretty much going in as a blank slate.  I enjoyed it, but I’m not sure I can pinpoint what exactly about it I enjoyed.  I know that I liked the narrative nature of the lyrics, and I really loved the actor who was playing the narrator.  His voice, both singing and speaking, was mesmerizing, and when he opened his mouth, I could hardly pay attention to anything else.  He was so good.  My complaints are few, but the one thing I noticed is that the German accents were a little lacking.  Having taken German in high school and college (and heretofore never been able to actually use it), I was able to understand the German words they spoke (like when he said “I song you”), but their accents tended to come across as Caribbean/Jamaican rather than German.  But I’m being nitpicky.  The only other complaint I have is not so much a complaint as a point of intrigue.  There was one white guy in the show, and I was a little distracted.  I guess he fit in as the only white guy in Amsterdam and Berlin, but he seemed quite out of place in a black Baptist church in LA.  I’m all for colorblind casting, but I was just curious about the one white guy.  It wasn’t bad, just intriguing.  It drew my attention.

                Okay, so here’s where I make an attempt to decipher what Passing Strange is about.  I think it’s about art and life, how they need each other, but how they don’t exactly fit together perfectly.  The characters, especially the youth are clearly trying to make sense of their lives through art, but they are also on some level trying to make sense of their art through their lives.  That sounds confusing, but I’m trying to say that they think their lives are the sources for their avant-garde art, but really I think that their avant-garde art is the source of their crazy lives.  They seem like they are trying to make their lives reflect their art.  I’m mostly referring to the other characters, because I think the youth is actually trying to make his art reflect his life, but he’s not sure where to begin.  Those last few sentences sounded a lot like a few papers I wrote in college.  Passing Strange has brought me back to that place where I confuse myself by getting so entwined in complicated ideas that I just don’t have the words to adequately explain.  I hope I made some sense.  Any of you have brilliant ideas about what Passing Strange is about?

                Here’s a video I found which I like, about the kinds of music on Broadway, featuring Spring Awakening, In the Heights, and, of course, Passing Strange:

Old People Like Avenue Q, Too!

                I recently attended a performance of the national touring company of Avenue Q in Washington, DC.  Strangely, the show was at the Lansburgh Theatre of the Shakespeare Theatre Company.  I didn’t know they did national tours there, but it was quite a treat, since the Shakespeare Theatre Company played a huge part in shaping me into the fanatic theatergoer I am today.  When I was a teenager, my dad took me there to see A Winter’s Tale, Much Ado About Nothing, Richard III, and others.  These experiences opened my eyes to the wonders of stagecraft and opened my mind to the possibilities of what theater could be.

                Cut to the present, a full-circle moment for me, my first time seeing Avenue Q, a musical which certainly broadened the scope of possibility for what musical theater could do, be, and say.  Awesome.

                My date for Avenue Q was my mother.  Having had my eyes opened to my faulty presuppositions about what older generations of theatergoers could handle (read my [title of show] post about that HERE), I decided to give my mom the benefit of the doubt.  I don’t know why I was ever nervous about it.  My mom may be 62, but she’s a cool, independent, open-minded, left-wing 62-year-old who has, on occasion, called me a prude.  Still, she’s my mom so I often prefer to remain naïve about some of the truths about her.  We rarely admit to ourselves that the things we did in college are the same things our parents did in college, and despite our very existence as evidence, we fail to acknowledge that parents are people too, sex lives and all.

                So, I had some reservations initially – would my mom be offended by “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist?”  How would she react to some of the more colorful vocabulary?  Would the graphic puppet sex shock her?

                It turns out that my mom really enjoyed it!  She told me that the only thing she thought was really  “out there” was the raunchy sex in “Loud as the Hell You Want,” but that it was okay since they were puppets.  “They don’t even have a bottom half,” was her comment on the matter.  She also said that her bad ear made it difficult for her to her the register of Christmas Eve’s speaking voice.  But my mom, age 62, gave Avenue Q the thumbs-up.  Her favorite part?  Kate Monster’s line “Is her name Purpose?”

                And me?  I loved it, of course!  I was already more than familiar with the music, and I was delighted by the scenes between musical numbers.  I also really enjoyed the use of the televisions as a complement to the comedy on stage.  There were two understudies on – for Brian and for Princeton/Rod – and the whole cast was phenomenal!  I was initially surprised to see the role of Gary Coleman played by a man, but he was excellent.  I thought the show was wonderful, relevant, and hilarious.  And now I know my mom can handle it.

And, just because it's amazing, I've posted from YouTube the amazing Avenue Q/Fiddler on the Roof mashup!