Stew’s “Passing Strange” is a musical retelling the life and times of Stew, a black musician, as he struggles to find his way by leaving his roots in Los Angeles and exploring Amsterdam and Berlin. Stew’s brilliance with dialog and his willingness to expose his weaknesses make “Passing Strange” well worth seeing.

In the beginning of the musical, which is now a film produced by Spike Lee, 14-year-old Stew embarrasses his mom at church by having his first epiphany about music.  His mom doesn’t usually go to church because, “them church bitches are too catty for me” and her feelings that church has just become a “Baptist fashion show.”

Stew reluctantly joins the youth choir and at first believes that he has nothing to gain from it. Church, however, leads Stew into the world of music, drugs, and girls, which gives him the foundation for him to start a band and later take his trip to Europe to discover himself.

As I stated earlier, the dialog is great throughout “Passing Strange” as much of it reveals Stew’s own insecurities and misconceptions about life. When one of the members of his band complains that the band will go nowhere because his “dad says there is no future in music”, Stew is quick to retort (in a kind of half song) that the guy’s dad sells air conditioners---“I’d rather suck at this than be great at selling air conditioners.”

A pivotal moment in the musical comes when he is in Amsterdam and Stew realizes that people trust him even though he is black—a different experience than he had back in LA. While in Europe, he meets an array of musicians, hippies, and other free spirits who challenge his ideas intellectually—most of the people he meets are women that he is obviously trying to impress so the dialog (of which about half is sung) is pretty sharp and funny. Throughout “Passing Strange”, Stew is never to shy to make fun of his younger self as he shyly converses with the women he meets.

Another nice moment in the film is when Stew asks his new European friends if they have ever felt oppression from dealing on the hard streets of LA. The older Stew is right there next to him at this time and reveals that none of the people on stage has ever been quite as oppressed as he tried to say.

The life and times of Stew star the real Stew and the Broadway musical “Passing Strange” won a Tony award.