Talk about a musical coming of age!
Jason Robert Brown and Alfred Uhry’s Parade, that intriguing, skillful, and well-remembered problem musical that rose like a princely phoenix but swiftly flamed into ash in 1998, comes vibrantly alive at City Center. Rather than leaving its audience suitably impressed but emotionally unmoved as in prior viewings, Michael Arden’s spare but meticulous production unleashes the gripping theatricality of the writing that has heretofore been trapped within.
The authors, in conjunction with original director Hal Prince, tackled a dangerously provocative subject: the Deep South lynching of factory superintendent Leo Frank, a displaced Brooklynite whose only crime seemed to be his ethnicity. (Bookwriter Uhry, the Atlanta-born author of Driving Miss Daisy, grew up with the story as family legend: His great-uncle owned the pencil factory where Frank worked and 13-year-old employee Mary Phagan was murdered on Memorial Day 1913.)
Not a cheery plot for a musical, with the added handicap that productions of the show understandably make the details clear going in. At City Center, the audience is greeted with a prominent projection of the actual historical marker headed “Leo Frank Lynching,” spelling out the salient facts.
This has always put an understandable damper on the proceedings. The leading character is drawn—by design—as an out-of-place, cranky, and not very likable fellow, so much so that he generates little sympathy. This despite the fact that he is clearly innocent of the crime—and even more clearly being railroaded by an ambitious politician and a nefarious newspaper publisher, both of whom purposely stoke the racist tendencies of the unwashed populous and instigate violently rabid hatred. Sound familiar?
All of this is set to what was then an astonishing score by a 20-something newcomer and which, 25 years later, comes across as not only astonishing but pretty much perfectly wrought. In this evening filled with something like three dozen songs (as opposed to West Side Story, say, with about 16), there is not an extraneous musical moment. Brown, who is no longer 20-something, is a major presence at City Center, standing on the podium leading the band in the wonderfully evocative orchestrations by Don Sebesky and Brown himself.
As for that podium: unlike the City Center norm, it is not visible but hidden away. The 24-piece orchestra is onstage but mostly out of view. From the downstairs seats, that is, but not the upper levels (as evidenced by what at the opening performance was two separate entrance hands from above, one in each act, apparently for composer/conductor Brown). Director Arden and scenic designer Dane Laffrey place most of the action on a large platform three feet or so above the deck, with significant scenes played on an inner platform even higher. This layer cake construction is the opposite of the band-front-and-center format we’re accustomed to at Encores. (Parade is not a part of the annual City Center Encores! season but what they call the City Center Annual Gala Presentation.)
What this does to sight lines from the front sections of the auditorium is hard to say, although the response from those seats suggests that this is not an issue. As the show gets underway, the visual absence of the orchestra is quickly compensated for by striking work from Arden and choreographer Cree Grant, the staging taking perfect advantage of the concert-format strictures. The necessarily simple production is enhanced by Lafferty’s scenery, Heather Gilbert’s lighting, and Susan Hilferty’s fully realized costumes. The production makes use of script and score enhancements made by the authors in conjunction with director Rob Ashford on the occasion of the 2007 London production at the Donmar Warehouse. Prince and Ashford are both expressly acknowledged in the Playbill.
[Read Steven Suskin’s reviews of the Broadway and Donmar cast recordings.]
Limited-engagement concert musicals, which generally open without previews, are known for somewhat shaky performances on the first night or two. This is decidedly not the case here; the entire, ever-present cast—principals and ensemble—appear to be as engrossed in the proceedings as the audience.
Said cast is stellar. Ben Platt, who was roundly lauded for his highly mannered, energetic performance as young Evan Hansen, might not seem ideal casting for the leading role in Parade. It turns out, though, that Platt is a strong actor; his Leo suggests that he has the goods to go on to a long and varied stage career should he so choose. Proving his equal in the role of the quiet but iron-willed Lucille Frank is Micaela Diamond. A local actor out of LaGuardia High School, she made her debut as the young incarnation of the title character in The Cher Show. She demonstrates a very different set of skills here.
Notable performances abound from other members of the 27-person ensemble. Jay Armstrong Johnson, as reporter Britt Craig, brings down the house as he sings, dances, and electrifies “Real Big News.” Gaten Matarazzo, as teenaged Frankie Epps, smoothly woos the ill-fated Mary in “The Picture Show” and presides over her haunting funeral in “It Don’t Make Sense.” Erin Rose Doyle offers chilling moments as the murdered girl with the white balloon. Stage veteran John Dossett gives one of his strongest performances in years, doubling as Judge Roan (philosophizing about “The Glory”) and fueling hatred as the old Confederate soldier.
Paul Alexander Nolan and Manoel Felciano make rapacious villains; Sean Allan Krill and Jennifer Laura Thompson offer compassion, belatedly, as the conflicted Governor Slayton and his wife; and Alex Joseph Grayson mesmerizes as the ex-con and likely murderer Jim Conley, giving false testimony in “That’s What He Said.” Not to be overlooked are Sophia Manicone, Sofie Poliakoff, and Ashlyn Maddox giving their haunting (if false) testimony in “The Factory Girls/Come Up to My Office.”
It is unknown whether a Broadway transfer, as with the delectable Encores Into the Woods, is in the cards. It is advised, though, that interested playgoers do try to see this production before—to borrow a phrase—this Parade passes by.
Parade opened November 1, 2022, at City Center and runs through November 6. Tickets and information: nycitycenter.org
