by James Wilkinson

‘Passing Strange’ –  Book and Lyrics by Stew. Music By Stew and Heidi Rodewald. Created in collaboration with Annie Dorsen. Directed by Arthur Gomez. Associate Director: Regine Vital. Music Director: Julius LaFlamme. Associate Music Director: David Freeman Coleman. Set Designer: Lindsay Fuori. Lighting Designer: Aja M. Jackson. Choreographer: Elmer Martinez. Costume Design: Chelsea Kerl. Sound Design: James Cannon. Props Design: Michelle Sparks. Presented by Moonbox Productions at the Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, December 10, 2021-January 1, 2021.

It’s all about the atmosphere here. That’s the vibe you get when you walk into Moonbox Productions’ Passing Strange and the stage is awash in electric blue light. The performance space is devoid of furniture, the musicians haven’t yet taken their places on the side, but the theater already has a crisp glow to it. Get ready. Musicals as an artform tend to veer toward the bombastic. Even for supposedly intimate chamber pieces, it’s all about getting to that moment when mere dialogue doesn’t do the emotions justice and the songs explode out of the characters diaphragms. Passing Strange is working on a different wave length. It’s not that the show lacks big musical moments that make the hair on the back of your neck stand up, (they’re here and they rip), it’s that it gets to those moments in a much more circuitous way. Moonbox’s production is one that you slide right into and it feels as lived-in as a memoir. Everything we witness is through the eyes of our lead character; we’re practically under his skin.

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