Of all the unlikely bonds in contemporary theater, few have been as strange or as poignant as the one between Noah Gellman, an eight-year old Jewish boy living with his family in Louisiana in 1963, and Caroline Thibodeaux, the family maid, who is middle-aged and Black. Of course, as the latter maintains throughout Caroline, or Change—first produced at the Public Theater in 2003, with a book and lyrics by Tony Kushner and music by Jeanine Tesori— she and Noah are not and cannot be friends; and viewing their relationship through the lens of our current political discourse, with its emphasis on differences in power and privilege, makes this more obvious than ever.
But Caroline’s own power, and its beauty—now in evidence in a London-based production brought to Broadway via the Roundabout Theatre Company, under Michael Longhurst’s direction—lie in how the musical underlines these differences while promoting empathy, and also pointing to our capacity for progress. Inspired by Kushner’s own background, the story unfolds during another era when racial tension and economic inequality were very much in focus, and the struggles of its key characters—a divorced mother of four, whose life has been defined by poverty and abuse, and a lonely little boy who recently lost his own mom to cancer—are interwoven with those of other men, women, and children, in ways that also bring generational contrasts very much into light.
Caroline is, as the show’s title indicates, its central figure, and presents a challenge for any actor. If she could afford a shrink, she would likely be diagnosed with depression, though it’s questionable to what extent therapy or even medication could benefit a woman who spends her days sealed in a basement, cleaning clothes, and her nights worrying about how to feed and clothe children whose alcoholic father walked out after beating her one time too many. Sharon D Clarke, who earned the second of three Olivier Awards playing the role on the West End, offers an interpretation that is even darker and bleaker than that of the original Caroline, the superb Tonya Pinkins. Solidly built, with a strikingly low speaking voice, Clarke alternately projects stoicism and bitterness to withering effect. Her dryness can be funny, too, particularly in her interaction with the ever-eager Noah, whose own misery and youthful imagination have led him to overestimate his significance to her. At a recent preview, the boy was played by Adam Makké, with plaintive sweetness and his own comic panache. (Gabriel Amoroso and Jaden Myles Waldman also alternate in the role.)
[Read Steven Suskin’s ★★★★☆ review here.]
But when Clarke raises that voice in song, Caroline’s emotions burst forth in full color. “Gonna pass me a law that night last longer,” she sings wearily, then later issues a proclamation that Nat “King” Cole “gotta come over my house… every night and stroke my soul.” Caroline is no dreamer, needless to say; she reprimands and fears for her second-eldest child and only daughter, the feisty Emmie—given a piercing voice and a sparkling presence by Samantha Williams—who responds to news of President Kennedy’s death by telling her mother, “I ain’t got no tears to shed for no dead white guy.”
The “change” in the musical’s title refers in part to the coins that Noah’s stepmother insists Caroline should keep after finding them in his pants pockets, a demand that hurts Caroline’s pride, and tests the integrity she has sustained in spite of her circumstances. On a larger scale, of course, Kushner is referring to the change that Emmie pines for and represents—change that can come slowly, it is stressed, but that is inevitable. This message is relayed in the show, which is mostly sung-through, by a sort of Greek chorus of inanimate objects: There’s The Washing Machine, given a fittingly bubbly soprano by Arica Jackson, and Radios 1, 2 and 3—a trio (Nasia Thomas, Nya, and Harper Miles, all excellent) who lend girl-group buoyancy to the Motown influences in Tesori’s score, which also draws on blues, gospel and, when the Gellmans are in focus, klezmer. Some of the most foreboding musical passages involve The Dryer and The Bus, both embodied by Kevin S. McCallister’s demonic bass-baritone; some of the loveliest ones include The Moon, played by N’Kenge, whose crystalline vocals bring out the classical nuances also in the score as she hovers over Fly Davis’s lean but vividly embellished set.
Other notable performances in human roles include Tamika Lawrence’s warm but nicely understated take on Dotty, Caroline’s long-suffering friend; John Cariani’s quietly heartrending portrait of Noah’s father, Stuart Gellman, a musician who either communicates or avoids communication by playing the clarinet; Caissie Levy’s sharp, sympathetic portrayal of Noah’s stepmother, Rose, whose habit of trying too hard while absorbing too little endears her to no one; and Chip Zien’s funny, ultimately moving turn as Mr. Stopnick, Rose’s father, a self-styled social justice warrior who gets more than he bargains for when he visits from New York City.
If there are a few slow-moving moments in Longhurst’s production, the payoff is big; it’s unlikely that anyone with a beating heart will leave after Act Two without moist eyes, or at least a lump in the throat. That’s not because of the sadness in Kushner’s story, of which there is plenty; it’s because of the sense of hope that ultimately cuts through it, blazing through the final number. It’s not easy to juggle despair and exuberance without resorting to sentimentality, and Caroline still manages the task handily.
Caroline, or Change opened October 27, 2021, at Studio 54 and runs through January 9, 2022. Tickets and information: roundabouttheatre.org
