The so-called "rock musical" is one of the more embarrassing Broadway standards. The whole enterprise usually amounts to nothing more than adding a bass guitar or a snare drum to what is otherwise a regular show tune. However, never has the Broadway impulse to create a soundtrack with songs that sound like, well, songs, been so successful as it is with Passing Strange.

Stew and Heidi Rodewald have written songs in genres ranging from psychedelic to gospel to garage punk - and none of them sound toned-down, or once-removed, or vaguely-imitated. On top of the confident and spot-on instrumentation there are lyrics that sound like lyrics - he describes the girls at his church as "a collection of verbs disguised as nouns."

The score of Passing Strange also glosses over the traditional Broadway style of storytelling through songs. Even the more "show tune"-esque numbers, such as "Keys," "Amsterdam" and "Love Like That," focus on a specific emotional moment or plot development, using the book to supply the changes that take place between such keystones.

This does give the songs a lack of a specific type of Broadway mettle, and while Sondheim-weaned theater-goers may expect slightly more pertinent lyrics and snappy rhymes, they are all the more CD - and, of course, mp3 - ready. The songs are not tethered to an overarching plot but to singular moments, making them able to stand independently not because they don't connect with the book or feel unnecessary, but rather because purely by album, the songs would have the same feel as The Wall or Tommy. The subtle comprehension of the story through the music is what defines a true rock musical, and being able to maintain music and lyrics that sound like and function as real songs make a great one.

Which is not to say that the play isn't extremely clever and snappy. It develops characters in the blink of an eye, both relying on and making fun of the stereotypes it uses to make such familiar, sympathetic roles. The trick of having a Narrator (Stew himself) sitting in the middle of the stage describing the scenes as they occur is usually employed very well, even though it seems like the role would quickly become a crutch.

However, it is the four actors each busily working at three roles, one in each locale - along with an appealingly flashy wall of lights - who liven up the bare stage. Colman Domingo especially shines with his fascinating performance as the tragic coward Franklin, tied to his father's money and his dreams of escaping to Europe. His role in forming the protagonist's dreams - both as the inspiration to seek the "real," to seek something greater than his current world, and as a repulsively flawed character who the protagonist purposefully tries to differentiate himself from - is a fascinating paradox.

As Stew watches the protagonist (known only as Youth) abandon his friends and mother, ruin his relationships and repeatedly leave "just as it was starting to feel real," it leaves the viewer wondering exactly how autobiographical the story is. Because in just one performance, Stew has a world of regret in his face as he watches the protagonist give up paradise in Amsterdam, love in Berlin, and - most climactically - his family, back home. To relive that much regret every night is a juxtaposition of heartbreak and brilliant theater.

However, after leaving Passing Strange, so full of rich music and a wide emotional background for each song, you have to ask: Why haven't they recorded a CD yet?