Director Spike Lee's passionate
Director: Spike Lee
Writer: Stew
Stars: De'Adre Aziza, Daniel Breaker, Eisa Davis, Colman Domingo, Chad Goodridge, Rebecca Naomi Jones, Jon Spurney, Stew.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3962302/
also listed as a Great Performances episode aired 16Jan09:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1259583/
also listed as a Great Performances episode aired 16Jan09:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1259583/
No songs in the Soundtracks, but this is a rock opera, almost all the words are sung.
The cast is mostly black, with 2 or 3 onstage band members who are white. Stew (writer/narrator/vocals/guitar) is black. So the bohemian is a black ex-pat from South Central LA who grew up middle class but needed to nurture his artistic side.
The production is sparse, working around the rock band onstage with folding chairs.
I'm not very sympathetic toward "art" about "artists" trying to find themselves. Is being artistic an inherent identity crisis? In the show, Stew "tells a story" about a friend's reaction to the show, which talks about the main character trying to find "the real", and the friend, who's a pretzel vendor, says something profound about "the real" not being real: the thing the character is looking for is Art, and that's not real. Or something like it.
Per IBDb, the show had 185 performances from Feb-Jul 2008. In a featurette, Stew talked about it's pre-B'way development. The B'way show won some awards, including a Tony (see IBDb link).
I wish more B'way shows were captured on film.
Rated 6.3 (197)
indie, dir. Lee; 6
