NEWSDAY: Spike Lee Does The Right Thing

Newsday
by Linda Winer
August 21, 2009

‘Passing Strange” is forever on my short list of theater I’d see again right now if I could.

The musical, which won a barrel of awards in 2008 but not the big Tony, closed on Broadway last summer after five months. Despite the acclaim, it never reached the adventurous mainstream, multicultural and rock crossover audience I believe would have loved the bold hipster journey.

So whenever people moan about Broadway’s tracing-paper movie clones or yet-another onslaught of greatest-hits revivals or the screaming pap that passes for pop in most of the theater, I try not to be obnoxious about reminding people of the indie-rock concert/performance-art cabaret/coming-of-age black-identity musical they should have seen.

But now they can see it, or an extraordinarily reasonable facsimile of it, called “Passing Strange: The Movie.”

In a rare cosmic convergence, Spike Lee saw the form-bending show – twice – when it was a hit at the Public Theater in 2007. He signed on to film the final Broadway performances of this take-no-prisoners production before it dwindled into a memory. The project had a limited run in movie theaters last week. On Wednesday, it will launch Sundance Selects, a new video-on-demand service offered on Cablevision, Time-Warner, Comcast, Cox and other national cable operators. [...]

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