THE DVD SHELF: Spike Lee's "Passing Strange" and "Michael Jackson's This Is It"

By Steven Suskin
31 Jan 2010

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This month we look at Spike Lee's film of the Broadway production of Stew's Passing Strange; Kenny Ortega's documentary about Michael Jackson's final concert that never was; and the Blu-ray transfer of the Buster Keaton classic "The General."

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Passing Strange came to Broadway in the winter of 2008 and immediately stirred things up. To some it was the bravest and brightest new musical to appear since Spring Awakening, featuring a one-named songwriter/star called Stew, who brought a new and relevant voice to Broadway. (Much the same was said, at the very same moment, about songwriter/star Lin-Manuel Miranda and his In the Heights, but that is irrelevant to the present discussion.) Other playgoers found Passing Strange to be admirable but far from brilliant; a third set just plain didn't like it.

I myself fell into the second category. A brave new musical, this Passing Strange; but foreign and uninvolving. To bring Spring Awakening back into the discussion, that show featured a score which was decidedly not my type of music. Even so, I found the kinetic energy of the material and the staging instantly involving. (This on three separate occasions, Off-Broadway, at a final preview uptown, and during awards season). This was not my reaction at Passing Strange; I found the score loud and unsettling, the staging unfocused, and the story less than involving.

This left me with mixed feelings when it came time to pop Spike Lee's Passing Strange: The Musical [IFC] into the DVD player. True, Mr. Lee is an admirable filmmaker who finds a way to make everything interesting; but still, he did not have the luxury of preparing a new screenplay and going into the studio or out on location. He was filming the actual stage production, at the Belasco; the same cast, the same material. What could he possibly make of this?

Well, I'll tell you: for me, he made sense of this. That is, he took that same production that I found unfocused and overwhelming and focused it. As at the Belasco, Stew is right up there in the middle of everything all the time. But in the theatre, I couldn't always decipher what he was telling us; his vibrant performance style and overpowering presence monopolized everything, too much so. Mr. Lee has him front and center on screen, frequently in close up, serving as narrator, interlocutor and guide. Stew, on the screen, is warm and wise and funny, elements that didn't come across to me to this degree in the theatre. The same holds true for the others. The characters stand out here in a way they didn't, for me, on stage. So in watching Spike Lee's version of Stew's Passing Strange, I felt like I was seeing something familiar but something quite different. And considerably more entertaining. So yes, go watch this new-style movie musical. Spike Lee has figured out what to do and how to do it.

On a side note, let me add that Daniel Breaker — who was so impressive on stage as Stew's younger self — is even better here; perhaps because we can see his performance that much closer. (He went on to play Donkey in Shrek.) Bonus features include an interview with Stew and co-composer Heidi Rodewald; a backstage warmup with the actors; a session in the makeup room; and Heidi giving an abbreviated backstage tour. Continued...