Sharon D Clarke doesn’t quite take the stage of Studio 54, mind you. She is cemented to it—or rather, to the basement laundry room of a house in Lake Charles, Louisiana, with roots as impervious to upheaval as the courthouse statue of “the South’s Defender” that greets us as we file into the theater. Like that oppressive memorial to the vanquished crusaders of the Confederacy, Caroline—the central character in Jeanine Tesori and Tony Kushner’s monumental Caroline, or Change—is entrenched in a place (the deep South) and time (late November 1963) where nothing will, or can, possibly change.
Except the authors foresee and, historically, know that change was imminent. For Louisiana, for the Nation, and most grudgingly for Caroline. (Bookwriter/lyricist Kushner has a not disinterested connection to the material: He was just then a seven-year-old transplanted New Yorker with a clarinet-playing father living in Lake Charles and being raised by what we now call a housekeeper but was in that particular universe always referred to as “the maid.”)
The white-uniformed Caroline is, as we say, rooted to that basement, surrounded by the din of the washing machine and the hum of the unseasonable bullfrogs of autumn, until late in the second act. At which point the character takes the stage in a self-lacerating solo (“Lot’s Wife”) that bursts the figurative chains of time and place and musical theater form. And at which point Clarke—who has thus far been a remarkable, intensely controlled presence—breaks through with a searing intensity most welcome after the recent series of societal upheavals. Some of which, mind you, are especially relevant to the theme and content of Caroline, or Change.
[Read Elysa Gardner’s ★★★★☆ review here.]
Clarke, a Londoner making her Broadway debut, is not exactly an unknown quantity, given her three Olivier Awards. (These include one for her 2018 performance in this role and another for her Linda Loman opposite Wendell Pierce in the Young Vic’s staggering 2019 Death of a Salesman, which fully deserves to be seen on the New York stage). Here, Clarke provides a compelling reason to see Michael Longhurst’s production of the Tesori-Kushner musical, which has been imported with an otherwise local cast.
Clarke is surrounded by a strong group of supporting players, including John Cariani as the clarinetist father (and offering what appears to be a bravura display of clarinet-playing); Arica Jackson and N’Kenge as, respectively, the Washing Machine and the Moon; Tamika Lawrence as Dotty; and Chip Zien as the fiery socialist New York grandfather. Special mention should be made of Kevin S. McAllister’s rendition of the mournful “bus” song. Adam Makké, one of the young actors who alternates as Noah, was excellent at the performance attended. And I was especially impressed by Caissie Levy as the nudgingly needy step-mother Rose. (Levy was seen here as Elsa in the recent Frozen. Back in 2011, she starred with Clarke in the London production of the negligible Ghost, a role that Levy—but not Clarke—repeated on Broadway.)
Longhurst’s production, along with the choreography by Ann Yee, is somewhat more earthy and musical-comedy-flashy than George C. Wolfe’s delicately ethereal original. The unit set, centering on the basement laundry room, forces parts of the action upstairs—literally—onto a narrow second level. The show is especially strong in the music department, with Tesori’s score played by a fine band under the direction of Joseph Joubert (who, with Rick Bassett and Buryl Red, orchestrated the original production).
Tesori and Kushner, back in 2004 and with the guiding hand of director-producer Wolfe, were forging a somewhat different form of new American chamber musical. Precisely what they wrought is a discussion for another time. But the original Caroline, or Change, which started at the Public and mounted a brave if quixotic Broadway run at the O’Neill, can be seen as the impetus for a chain of provocative new-style musicals that includes Tesori’s own Fun Home as well as Dear Evan Hansen and The Band’s Visit.
A major change of the times: When viewing the play originally, a large segment of the audience was immediately and fully aware—thanks to dialogue and lyrics clearly telling us that we were in late November of 1963 and change was in the air—precisely what was about to happen, one state and 350 miles away. A portentous signpost to which most of the current audience, alas, seems oblivious.
Caroline, or Change opened October 27, 2021, at Studio 54 and runs through January 9, 2022. Tickets and information: roundabouttheatre.org
