Passing Strange Notes on the Production
STEW’S MUSICAL ORIGINS
Mark Stewart, “Stew,” was born in Los Angeles in 1961. His love for music began in Junior High School as he started playing in bands. Although he grew up in a predominantly African-American neighborhood, Stew was influenced by a wide array of music, including hard and progressive rock as well as punk. Stew’s first recording was with the band Animated in the early 1990’s. Following this album, he moved to New York City and joined several groups including a percussion combo and an R&B pop band. After several years in New York, Stew moved on to Europe, where he created music and performance pieces with friends in Amsterdam and Berlin.
Following his work on avant-garde pieces in Europe, he returned to Los Angeles in 1995 and formed a band called The Negro Problem. In 1997, the band released its first album, Post-Minstrel Syndrome, and earned national attention. The album reflected Stew’s vision of sharing powerful, relevant content. Subsequent albums included Joys and Concerns and Newsweek’s Album of the Year, the more sophisticated pop-styled Guest Host.
After finding success with The Negro Problem, Stew embarked on a solo career, creating the “afro-baroque”-based ensemble cabaret “Stew” with long time friend and collaborator, Heidi Rodewald. A booking at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London as part of David Bowie’s Meltdown Festival brought Stew back to Europe for a short trip in 2002. Upon returning to the U.S., he released the album The Naked Dutch Painter. Newsweek praised this album by again awarding Stew Best Album of the Year and proclaimed that it was “perhaps the finest collection of songs an American songwriter has come up with this year.”1
VENTURING INTO 1980’S EUROPEAN PERFORMANCE ART
Stew fled to Europe in the 1980’s to take advantage of the area’s avant-garde performance work, specifically in Amsterdam and Berlin. Having grown up in suburban Los Angeles, he felt that the community was not open to his fresh ideas, and he wanted to explore the rest of the world. He wanted to experiment, live in the moment, and compose music that was raw and honest. Now with inviting, uninhibited opportunities to develop his music in Europe, Stew welcomed the chance to express himself. Although he had a natural flair for pop music, he longed to cultivate his own style of afro-baroque music. This genre served as a commentary on such issues as drug rehabilitation and workplace violence.2
The opportunity for Stew to leave his routine lifestyle was alluring. Stew first set out for Amsterdam, a far cry from suburban life in California. 1980’s Amsterdam was thriving with sex, drugs, and freedom of expression. Prostitution was rampant through the red light district and drugs of all kinds were easily accessible. In fact, drug use was actually encouraged and the bohemian lifestyle almost irresistible. Coffee shops that made marijuana sales affordable were springing up all over the city. Police officers went undercover to study the drug use and its effects. They tended to look the other way, as harder, more destructive drug use needed more attention. The police, coffee shop, and pub owners had an unspoken understanding that as long as the drug wasn’t overtly advertised and there was a peaceful atmosphere, the establishments could operate without police interference.
Living arrangements in Europe at the time were also affordable, if not completely free. There was an obligatory military draft in Germany and many men moved to West Berlin to avoid this conscription. Residents were exempt from duty due to political, regional, and constitutional reasons. Among these men were free-spirited, risk-taking performance artists. Many buildings in the area were abandoned after housing unsuccessful, state-run enterprises. People infiltrated these buildings and obtained squatting rights, among them were newspapers, rights groups, and the performance artists.3&4
WRITING A ROCK MUSICAL
Stew’s commitment towards telling the truth of the moment in performance was the backbone of his work. Stew comments that he had no intention of writing a traditional play. “What I wanted was to make something that took the electricity of a rock show and merged it with the rock and roll potential that exists within theatre.”4 Stew was very clear that he didn’t want something classically structured and prescribed, such as a conductor giving specific tempos and musicians that simply followed a strict predetermined score. He wanted there to be room in the work for all the performers to have freedom of expression and truly connect to the idea of creating and performing rock music.
Stew decided to consult the roots of theatre by reading Greek plays. His impression of theatre, prior to researching Greek plays, was that it was seemingly stuffy and a place where only the elite and highbrow came together to witness art. Stew was inspired by lack of pretense in Greek plays, especially the alcohol consumption, audience members yelling at male actors on stage dressed as women, and venues that were almost always in the poorest neighborhoods in town. He connected with this kind of theatre, as it felt real and honest.
His inspiration for the story and title for Passing Strange began after reading a comic book version of Othello. “Othello reminded me of a guy in a rock band who got the girl by spinning his rock-and-roll war stories.” ii Stew saw a connection to Passing Strange, as he saw a youth character telling a bunch of European girls stories from a place that they had never been, all while adding his own embellishments. The term “passing” not only referred to his deeplyAfrican American roots where blacks tried to pass for whites, but also more simply to the passing of time. Stew’s process for Passing Strange was truly collaborative, submitting each page of the script to the creative team for input and approval. Stew felt that the entire team should feel inspired by the material. With a lifelong appreciation for the literary material of T. S. Eliot and the musical language of artists ranging from John Coltrane to J. S. Bach, Stew found an addiction to writing for actors, seeing them as instruments with minds. He thought of Passing Strange as one big song that people could just run around in. This perspective helped him not get overwhelmed by the process and envision the greater story of the work as a whole.5
Stew performed much of his music at Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater in New York. Staff at the Public Theater commissioned Stew to come up with a full-length piece after taking a growing interest in his work. This opportunity arose four years prior to the opening of Passing Strange, and while Stew had no idea what the story or even the premise would be, he was sure about the style of music. “We knew we were going to invent something,” Stew says, “ ‘cause we kind of knew this hadn’t been done before, the goal being to bring the actual music that one hears in a club to the stage — not through some kind of theatrical musical-theater filter. You know, ‘rock’ musical — that term ‘rock’ should really be in quotations, right? Because it’s not really rock music that anyone who likes rock music would actually listen to.”6
PRODUCTION HISTORY
Passing Strange was originally produced as a workshop in 2002 as a part of the Sundance Theatre Lab in Utah. Stew worked again with Heidi Rodewald and co-creator Annie Dorsen, who later directed the staged work. The musical premiered on October 19, 2006 at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre in Berkeley, CA. The work then held an off-Broadway engagement at The Public Theatre from May 14th through June 3, 2007. The Broadway production of Passing Strange began previews at Belasco Theatre on February 8, 2008 before the official opening on February 28, 2008. After 165 performances, Passing Strange ended its Broadway run on July 20, 2008. Director Spike Lee was so moved by the production that he filmed the last 3 Broadway performances and made it into a documentary. The film premiered at Sundance on January 16, 2009 and opened at the IFC Center in New York on August 21, 2009.
Passing Strange was nominated for seven Tony Awards, and Stew won the 2008 Tony for Best Book of a Musical. Also nominated for seven Drama Desk Awards, the production won the awards for Outstanding Musical, Outstanding Lyrics, and Outstanding Music. Other nominations were recognized by the Outer Critics’ Circle, Drama League, and Lucille Lortel organizations. Other awards include Drama Critics’ Circle for Best Musical.6
References
1 Passing Strange, about the play. Web. http://www.negroproblem.com/passing/pages/about.html
2 ‘Passing Strange’: a Real Rock Musical. Web. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=87767899
3 Pruijt H Squatting in Europe - English version of Pruijt, H., 2004, Okupar en Europa, in Miguel Martínez Lopez and Ramón Adell (eds) ¿Dónde están las llaves? El movimiento okupa: prácticas y contextos sociales, Madrid, La Catarata, 35-60
4 Isherwood, Charles, Look Back in Chagrin: A Rocker’s Progress, The New York Times, May 15, 2007
5 Passing Strange 06/07 – Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Web. https://www.berkeleyrep.org/season/0607/pa_archive_program.asp
6 Passing Strange: IBDB. Web. http://www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=475091