Media Maven’s Morsel – Broadway Edition: Passing Strange, In The Heights & Sunday in the Park with George

As you can probably guess from the title of this post, I’m currently in beautiful New York City (it was absolutely gorgeous out today), enjoying a nice weekend before I head to Israel for the next 2 weeks.  I’ve seen three musicals in the past 24 hours, and it is my pleasure to briefly talk about each of these three terrific productions here.  If you only have time to read one sentence, let it be this: see all three musicals.  You won’t be disappointed.  And now for a bit more detail:

Passing Strange - Though I wouldn’t go as far as to call it “the next step in the evolution of the rock musical” as my friend Adam did, I would call Passing Strange as unique, modern, and exciting a musical theater experience you can get today.  The brainchild of Stew, a singer/songwriter with a penchant for racially and politically driven lyrics (though in truth, he’s very hard to pin down), and partner Heidi Rodewald, Passing Strange is the autobiographical musical journey of Stew’s maturation from angsty teen to mature musician.  To try and distill this show into a one sentence description doesn’t come close to doing it justice.  The energy of this show is unmatched– each member of the 5 piece rock band, which includes Stew on electric guitar, has their own platform on the stage from which they play and interact with the uniformly outstanding, all-black cast of 6.  The songs explode with energy, each lyric has a smart and relatable message, and each poignant scene flows cinematically into the next.  This ain’t your grandmama’s musical (there’s a song called “We Just Had Sex”…and its sung by several different combinations of people), and we’re lucky that it isn’t.

In The Heights – In The Heights is an anomaly; it is both a revolutionary and original piece of musical theater, while also feeling as old-school and familiar as Annie Get Your Gun.  With music and lyrics written by its leading man, Manuel-Lin Miranda, In The Heights is Broadway’s first authentic look at life in the Latino neighborhood of Washington Heights in Brooklyn.  This is not West Side Story, a love story written and acted by white dudes that happens to take place in a Puerto Rican neighborhood of NYC.  This is a story about the people of The Heights, starring people from The Heights, completely in the style of people from the barrio.  Whether its the hip-hop beats, the spicy latin dances, the countless Spanish lyrics, or the sick raps peppered throughout, this show gives voice to a community in a complete and total way that no musical has ever come close to doing.  It’s this fresh and youthful voice that makes In The Heights a blast in spite of its biggest shortcoming: take away the new perspective and its a musical you’ve seen 50 times before.  Each scene goes like this: Character A makes joke, Character B makes joke, Character A leaves, Character B sings about their one great dream to get out of this town, Scene ends.  This happened maybe 34 times in the show.  The first 45 minutes of the show is one “I Want ___” song after another, as each character gets to sing their inner monologue of their dream to succeed and make it out of the old neighborhood.  Yaaaawn.  Also, aside from Abeula Claudia, everyone in the cast has a shockingly weak singing voice.  You wait the whole damn show for someone to open up and belt, but everyone seems to have been cast for their looks, dancing, and energy, not their vocal chops.  Still, I must reiterate: this show succeeds, greatly and easily, in spite of any negative marks against it.

Sunday in the Park with George — I’ve been familiar with this show for a long time, but I had never had the opportunity to see a live production until now…and let me tell you, I would wait another 20 years for a chance to see it again.  Though it’s impossible to pick a favorite from among the work of Stephen Sondheim, a.k.a. God’s gift to musical theater, George is as moving and as beautiful of a work as the dude ever wrote.  I always loved the music, but hearing and seeing it live was one of the most affecting experiences I’ve ever had in a theater.  The score is one of Sondheim’s very best– the lyrics are out of this world brilliant, the music a perfect reflection of subject George Seurat’s complex and conflicted existence.  The visual effects in this production are mindblowing, the best I’ve ever seen in any musical ever.  Seurat’s work comes to life in a way that I simply cannot describe in words on this blog– incredible light projection allows Seurat to quite literally draw the scene, whether its a park on an island in the Seine or a charcoal line on a blank canvas.  While the other two musicals I’ve discussed are most notable for what they contribute to the ongoing development of musical theater, Sunday in the Park with George is a truly timeless masterpiece presented for a new generation of viewers by this exceptional production (9 Tony nominations).