“I Wish we could talk about how the means will not prepare you for the ends.
how your epiphanies will become fair-weather friends.
how death will make you lower your defenses.
The only truth of youth is the grown up consequences”
—PASSING STRANGE
“I will see her again. Because life is a mistake, that only art can correct. I will see her again.”
—PASSING STRANGE
I just saw one of the most brilliant things ever.
Simply devastating.
PASSING STRANGE
But today I decided to give the dvd PASSING STRANGE a try.
Man.
Man.
Stunning. Simply stunning.
Created by singer/songwriter Stew, PASSING STRANGE is a semi-autobiographical Rock Opera, that takes you on a journey of one man’s search… for the real; that becomes all our journeys and all our mistakes. Highlighted by a phenomenal cast, avant-garde and stunning script/design, and brilliant music and direction. It is the tale of coming of age, told unlike any I have seen before. A minimalist play/tale that spans LA to Amsterdam to Germany, and spans distances not measurable in miles, and times that can not be captured in years. PASSING STRANGE devastates With humor, hunger, poetry and pain. And Love. And Love.
And raw effing POWER and ENERGY.
“I’ll live in vans crammed with guitars.
I’ll sleep on floors and play in bars.
I’ll dance to my own Metronome
Till Chaos feels like Home!”
“You know what’s weird? When you wake up that morning and realize your entire adult life was based on a decision made by a teenager.”
—PASSING STRANGE
Words just do not do it justice.
I have got to see anything this playwright/troupe ends up doing in the future.
Brilliant.
Been a long time since I’ve been to a concert or a play, several months, long time since I’ve felt… moved. Art when it’s good, when it is really, really good; can change the contour of your soul and the breadth of your reality.
At 14 it would have changed my soul, and at 400 :), I find, much to my surprise, it still has the power… to change my soul. 🙂
It can make you reevaluate your status quo.
And make a change.
PASSING STRANGE is art.
And Spike Lee manages to capture, brilliantly, the last night, and by all reports one of the greatest nights of the play.
Highest Recommendation.
Heroic Times 
Oh, absolutely. Whereas “Miracle at St. Anna” was a hot steaming mess, PASSING STRANGE is totally and utterly a work of art that left me absolutely staggered with it’s power. I found this on Netflix and have since purchased the DVD as I want to be able to see this anytime I want. PASSING STRANGE is one of the reasons I’d rather see plays this way than actually go the theater because you’ve seen it just that one time and it’s gone. But this brilliant and magnificent performance needs to be seen over and over again.
Yeah it’s a great DVD. Though I also like the live vibe of a theater, the call and response, of live actors projecting and receiving from a live crowd. Yeah, I’m definitely going to try to drag myself to the theater next week. 🙂
A piece that “becomes all our journeys and all our mistakes” definately sparks an interest. I love hearing about works of any kind that step away from cookie cutter catch phrases and story lines that can made into equally overdone sitcoms. I’m looking forward to watching this DVD.