The Daily Telegraph - Features

A paean to the joys of going off the rails

- By Dominic Cavendish

Passing Strange

Young Vic, London SE1

★★★★☆

I only had the haziest idea of what to expect from Passing Strange, gleaning, as anyone could, that it’s written by a guy called Stew, was briefly on Broadway in 2008 – where it was showered with Tony Award nomination­s – and was filmed by Spike Lee. To quote the Young Vic’s promotiona­l material, it concerns: “A young musician [who] sets out on an electrifyi­ng musical odyssey to find himself and his place in the world.”

The imprimatur of the Young Vic for this European premiere production – directed by Liesl Tommy – should be grounds enough to get excited. Except that the theatre’s reputation suffered a dent with its nondescrip­t musical about Nelson Mandela in 2022.

No such ho-hum response is invited here, though. Passing Strange is so wildly, and often loudly, offbeat that there’s never a dull moment. Presented as an amplifier-filled “gig theatre” happening, with the musicians embedded among the cast, and projected video adding to a sense of concert-going dynamism, it comically mines a subject of abiding fascinatio­n: that youthful period when you want to make sense of the world while grappling with the riddle of your identity.

The experience­s relayed – drawing on those of Mark Lamar Stewart (the co-composer, with his personal and profession­al partner Heidi Rodewald) – combine the universal and the particular. As embodied by Giles Terera, who takes centre stage with an amused, conspirato­rial air and a plain aptitude for electric guitar, Stew is a middle-aged man of African-American heritage looking back to an upbringing in Los Angeles that was uneventful­ly middle class.

With Keenan Munn-Francis giving us the wide-eyed incarnatio­n of Stew’s younger self, we follow this boho-inclined sort’s progress from the local gospel choir, past a flirtation with his own teen punk band, to flying the nest and seeking mind-expanding adventures in Europe. Indeed, the show’s resonant appeal lies in its suggestion that an inquiring mind can genuinely be transforme­d through rites-of-passage sex, drugs and experiment­ation.

Passing Strange evokes a now distant 1980s Europe, but its non-judgmental, good-humoured aspect reminds you of that more recent past, before selfies, social media and social justice took mindless hold. Not revelatory, perhaps, but invigorati­ngly strange, and bitterswee­t.

Until July 6. Tickets: 020 7922 2922; youngvic.org

 ?? ?? Wildly offbeat: Renée Lamb, David Albury and Keenan Munn-Francis star
Wildly offbeat: Renée Lamb, David Albury and Keenan Munn-Francis star

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