Imagine that the Jets and the Sharks had all been buddies, and that dance at the gym had been defined by their camaraderie. That’s the vibe in “Turn My Life Around,” one of several thrilling production numbers that Bill T. Jones has choreographed for Paradise Square, a new musical that has thus far gotten more press for backstage drama, much of it stemming from a lead producer who has done time for fraud.
Hopefully, attention can now be paid to Jones—sure to be a fierce competitor this awards season, in a category that has already seen its share of fabulous work—and some of his lavishly talented collaborators, among them leading actress Joaquina Kalukango, bound to be a top contender in that field as well.
Square is set during the Civil War in the Five Points district of lower New York, where Irish immigrants then mingled with free but destitute Black citizens in bars, gambling houses and other establishments where more respectable folk of both races would not dare be seen, even as they indulged in similar pastimes. Nelly O’Brien, Kalukango’s character, runs a popular watering hole, and has forged her own interracial family: Her white husband, Willie, is an Irish police officer, whose sister Annie is married to Samuel Jacob Lewis, a Black reverend who acts as the local stationmaster, sheltering runaway slaves seeking freedom via the Underground Railroad.
When Willie goes off to fight for the Union, two young men show up in need of refuge. One is an escaped slave, whom Samuel “baptizes” Washington Henry; the other is Annie and Willie’s nephew, Owen Duignan, who is fleeing a country still reeling from the Great Famine. Washington and Owen become roommates and appear to be developing a friendship that, like so many of the relationships surrounding them, transcends differences in skin color and experience.
All of this open-mindedness and good will are threatened, however, when the first federal conscription law is passed, requiring young men in the North to sign up for military service—unless they can pay their way out. Then the denizens of Five Points find themselves in a situation not unlike our own national quandary in recent years, in which the racially oppressed and the socio-economically downtrodden are turned against each other—with the wealthy and powerful poised to benefit, both politically and in their pocketbooks.
Librettists Christina Anderson, Craig Lucas and Larry Kirwan and director Moisés Kaufman can paint this dynamic with a heavy hand. Aside from the struggling Irish, for instance, the white characters emerge as cartoon villains. John Dossett brings admirable diligence to one such tyrant, while Jacob Fishel plays a down-on-his-luck musician who is revealed in a plot twist as a once-beloved (if overrated) songwriter whose historical contributions to music have been overshadowed by his racism.
But Kaufman, with ample support from Jones, also culls bravura performances. If Chilina Kennedy’s Annie is overwrought—I found myself wondering how the actress is going to get through eight shows a week bellowing her lines as she does—the other principals express their characters’ frustration and yearning compellingly, particularly when singing or dancing. Working with step dance veterans and innovators Garrett Coleman and Jason Oremus (both featured dancers as well, though Oremus is out until mid-April due to an injury), Jones draws on both Irish and African traditions to exhilarating and gorgeously lyrical effect. Sidney DuPont and A.J. Shively, who respectively play Washington and Owen, each get physical star turns—Shively’s long legs are so agile that you may gasp when he first lifts them—though ensemble members all get opportunities to shine, individually and as a collective.
While Jason Howland’s score, with lyrics by Nathan Tysen and Masi Asare and additional music by Kirwan, isn’t instantly memorable, supple-voiced cast members such as DuPont and Gabrielle McClinton, who plays Washington’s love interest, milk its more soulful nuances. Kalukango, who sang in 2015’s stunning revival of The Color Purple before earning a Tony nomination in Slave Play, reminds us what a superb vocalist and musical actress she is. Her rendering of the eleven o’clock number “Let It Burn,” building from shimmering melancholy to a defiant belt, is a master class on how to stop a show cold without resorting to melisma fits or other ostentatious gimmicks—and stop the show it did, earning a sustained standing ovation at a recent preview.
The resilience demonstrated by Kalukango’s character and others in Paradise Square seems fitting in a show that might have been prematurely written off as the latest big musical that couldn’t. Instead, at a time when original stories and scores are becoming increasingly rare in such Broadway fare, the production delivers both a surge of energy and a flicker of hope.
