Posted on 05/16/2008
Biased as it is, I have a soft spot for Black art that hits the big time. Suddenly, poetry I wouldn’t have paid twelve bucks for at Nuyorican Poets Café becomes wildly entertaining as Def Poetry on Broadway. Even A Raisin in the Sun starring Diddy touched me (once I stopped vomiting) because it’s so rare to see any Black people on Broadway anymore, much less all Black casts. So needless to say, this theatre season I’m more than a little excited to see two all-Black shows on the Great White Way, namely, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Passing Strange, just nominated for seven Tony awards. The latter has me all a-twitter, though, because the only appealing thing about paying $100 for the former is seeing James Earl Jones before he punches it. Passing Strange, however, may be the dark horse in the shadow of the top-billed, widely adored classic Cat, as it touts no marquis names, just a multi-talented cast of misfits in a soulful rock musical.

Mirroring the life of writer/narrator Stew, Passing Strange tells the story of a young Black man, Youth, from South Central on a European adventure to find “the real” in whatever form he may encounter it. This takes him from his mother’s hypocritical Baptist church to the loose mores of Amsterdam to a tense circle of artists and intellectuals in Berlin. All the while, his musical sensibilities stretch and expand with his travels, taking him from puerile, but passionate punk rock which his youth choir rejects (performing a hilarious song as The Scareotypes) to a more pointed, faux victim of oppression performance artist (Middle Passage). The music within the musical that Youth performs is just as catchy and at times, more inventive than the actual show’s score, seeing as how Youth has no pretense about creating work for a Broadway audience. His punk, pop and rock experiments perfectly showcase his stubborn ideals facing his growth as a man and an artist.

When I first read reviews of the show, I was surprised at how many critics made no qualms about using some permutation of ‘big, Black man’ when speaking of Stew. Then I saw the show. As a narrator, Stew is an unavoidable presence usually placed stage center providing context and quips for the action taking place. But even when the lights are not squarely on him, he is a silent scene-stealer. It is impossible not to look at him and part of it is, well, because he is such a big, Black man, despite his short stature. The most accurate description is not in words, but in an artists’ rendering from The New Yorker. It shows Stew’s stenciled face, framed by his thick black frame glasses, mouth stretched wide, revealing his gapped teeth amidst an uncontrolled rebel yell. That unbridled energy and physicality was something James Earl Jones had as Jack Johnson and no doubt brings to Cat as Big Daddy. But Mr. Jones doesn’t rock Chuck Taylors or play the guitar. When he does, he’ll get my hundred bucks, approximately the same amount I’ve spent to see Passing Strange on three separate occasions.

The wonderful part about Passing Strange is that it attracts a diverse audience, in color and age. After speaking to some more mature viewers who saw the play, I was in shock to discover that everyone does not see the world as I do. I guess this is where I should note some sort of SPOILER warning, but since I seem to be one of few who didn’t catch this detail, it might be unnecessary. This older viewer pointed out that many of the characters we see portrayed by Black actors probably were not actually Black in Stew’s life. Though left unstated in the play, there are moments, particularly during his stay in Berlin, that make the assumption valid. In Berlin, Youth reaches the height of his passing, where he deliberately manipulates Black stereotypes to gain acceptance by his would-be comrades. In one song, he shucks and jives in various displays of Blackness for this German audience, popping and locking, letting them touch his hair, even attempting to rub the brown off his skin. Unless the audience is to believe Black Europeans were this clueless about their American counterparts, as I did, such a performance would only be necessary for White Berliners. During the same period, Youth calls his girlfriend's family “redneck.” I assumed he was using the best term he knew to insult her small-town family, but redneck is usually only an effective slur against people whose necks have the capacity for redness. There are several more examples of potential double meanings, but, I guess the point is, how much does it matter?

In an ultimate flipping of the proverbial script, where stage and screen were notorious for ‘blacking up’ White actors playing Blacks, Stew has one-upped cork and replaced the White people from his European past altogether with Black ones. Does this make it more palatable for viewing? I had to honestly think if I would've found that shuck and jive scene as brilliant and entertaining if he were doing it for a bunch of delighted White Europeans (the ever-present White band excluded). I still don't know.

The degree to which the erasure of racial lines benefits Passing Strange is also hard to determine. When discussing the play with a White friend who also missed this detail, he was amazed at the deceit, but ultimately didn’t care. The show was good enough to make you ignore race and immerse yourself in the story. But the same way a literal interpretation of color might have left a sour taste in my mouth, I wonder how much pleasure a White audience would derive from a play documenting the ignorant behavior of White Europeans toward this aspiring Black musician. ‘Oh, we’re the bad guys again. How original,’ they might say during intermission.

I should also mention that age was the common tie between all the people who caught the race difference and those who did not. None of my peers under thirty years of age noticed that the characters were European. Those older, and in some cases, well traveled, viewers never considered the characters being anything but. When I asked them how they could be so sure, they struggled to put their confidence into words. Some said the time period wouldn’t lend itself to a presence of Black artists in Amsterdam or Berlin. Another said the speech and mannerisms were dead-on European. Guess you have to go to Amsterdam to know. But when courting a young audience in a multi-cultural world, it was probably wise not to browbeat them with messages, especially about race. For that generation, it is tres vogue to act like race doesn’t exist in order to avoid any uncomfortable conversations about Iraq, Katrina, the prison system, gentrification or anything else that can ruin the enjoyment of lattes on NYU’s campus. Though the show’s decision was purely artistic, selecting the best actors to play the roles, the color-blind sleight of hand probably works in the show’s favor.

The bigger person inside me says race shouldn’t matter, yet I doubt I’d be as sympathetic toward a play that says, ‘In order to find yourself, you need to leave your close-minded Black community and find some White friends to embrace you.’ If you’re going to create a false identity anyway, why choose to fake it for the Euros and not the Negroes? Bottom line, though, is that Passing Strange is a great show with layers. Few pieces on or off Broadway are this thought-provoking, self-aware and ultimately fulfilling on every level.

- Candace L.