Review: 'Passing Strange' is a funny, tuneful 'ride to the real'

I don't think I really believed it was spring until I saw "Passing Strange."

Yellow Tree Theatre's rock/blues/pop/funk musical doesn't have anything to do with the season but it's so fresh, energetic and full of promise that it's in keeping with the grape hyacinths pushing out of the ground at my house. Also in the spring-y vein, it's a show that feels like it's finding its way toward something new.

Written by Heidi Rodewald and a musician who calls himself Stew, "Passing Strange" is autobiographical, featuring two versions of Stew. One, spectacularly played at Yellow Tree by Malo Adams, is billed as Narrator. He plays the guitar and sings about half of the songs, which look back at the years when he was trying to find his authentic self and define his signature sound.

Those scenes play out in front of us, backed by Adams and three others in the show's nimble band. The younger Stew, who's called Youth and is played by fierce Valencia Proctor, rebels against the church of his mother (Jamecia Bennett), dabbles with musical styles and finds love in Europe — all part of his "crazy ride to the real," as a voice tells us before instructing us to shut off our phones.

There are echoes of "Rent" and "Godspell" in the way "Passing Strange" shifts between concert and play, with Adams commenting on and driving the action of a piece that's more about vibe than character or plot. The difficult-to-pin-down-ness of the show, wittily directed by Austene Van, is a big part of the fun. So is watching its nimble cast of seven shift between settings and archetypal roles, urging Youth to figure out who he is and making fun of him when he falls short (an especially bracing scene finds "Passing Strange" sticking a pin in Youth's attempt to depict his travails as a no-bueno slavery metaphor).

"Passing" also is a theme in "Passing Strange." Separated from his Los Angeles family, Youth believes he's his most authentic self in Berlin, until a girlfriend tells him, "I think you are passing for ghetto," and he realizes he has been performing "Blackness." Not surprisingly, it takes checking in with his family to set Youth on his true course, along with sage words from Adams, whose warm tenor has an inviting hint of scratchiness in it.

At one point, Adams bemoans that many of us are doomed to lives determined by choices made in our clueless youths but the real beauty of "Passing Strange" is how it illustrates the opposite: that the mistakes we make as teenagers help us become who we are.

'Passing Strange'

Who: By Stew and Heidi Rodewald, in collaboration with Annie Dorsen. Directed by Austene Van.

When: 7:30 p.m. Wed.-Sat., 2 p.m. Sun. Ends May 8.

Where: Yellow Tree Theatre, 320 5th Av. SE., Osseo.

Protocol: Masks and COVID vaccination (or negative test within 72 hours) required.

Tickets: $27-$31, 763-493-8733 or yellowtreetheatre.com.