The best advantage of the so-called “The Parade” revival on Broadway Jason Robert Brown’s sad if flawed musical about Leo Frank’s 1915 anti-Semitic lynching is youth.
The acting husband and wife of Leo and Lucille Frank, Ben Platt and Micaela Diamond seem strikingly young (and Diamond is actually 23), like the faded photo of your great-grandparents you discover in a drawer. The themes neither smile nor frown, but there is much promise and fear behind their neutral stares.
2 hours half-hour with one break. Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, 242 W. forty fifth St.
These clashing forces fuel the revival that kicked off Thursday night at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theater and have audiences mechanically wanting what’s best for Lucille and Leo – although we all know a quiet life is tragically out of reach for them.
That we care about their future is an important layer to the often-cool-to-the-touch show that has all the time been more inquisitive about the issues it’s coping with than the people it’s about.
In reality, “Parade” is a musical that can all the time be good quite than great – hampered by author Alfred Uhry’s book about stereotypical Southern cartoons being less threatening and real due to their flatness, and Brown’s rating that includes each his best songs and most unforgettable.
But director Michael Arden’s small staging, which began as a City Center concert, has heart because it focuses directly on the Franks’ burgeoning relationship as their difficulties escalate.
The show begins and ends with a lush and loud number titled “The Old Red Hills of Home,” set partly during the Civil War and partly in 1915, suggesting that stubborn Southern pride – undeserved in judging this show – continues and unchanged.
Leo has just moved from Brooklyn to live with Lucille in Marietta, Georgia, where he is from, and as a Jew he feels misplaced – even amongst Southern Jews. “I believed Jews were Jews, but I used to be improper!” he sings.
And he or she’s right about feeling like a goal. While working as a manager at the National Pencil Co., he is arrested on suspicion of killing teenage worker Mary Phagan (Erin Rose Doyle) whose body was present in the constructing. There are other suspects, but the authorities knowingly ignore them and go after Leo.
It is these authorities – as written and because of this carried out – that run “The Parade” with hackneyed, barking dialogue. Racist lawyer Hugh Dorsey (Paul Alexander Nolan) and newspaper reporter Britt Craig (Jay Armstrong Johnson) are especially good on paper.
They appear fake, but pictures of real historical figures are displayed throughout production on the back wall and sometimes in the middle of the song, which is an unnecessary distraction.
Brown’s best music and Platt’s most heartbreaking work come during his trial as three factory girls (who’ve been taught to lie) harmonize their testimonies compellingly, like Abigail from The Crucible. Brown has yet to top him on any show.
When Leo makes his announcement and Platt sings that his character is emotionless and awkward but innocent, it’s the opposite of where he sobbed at the end of Evan Hansen’s Dear, but the heartbeat is the same.
The second act has more built-in structural issues as Lucille works tirelessly to appeal her husband’s verdict and enlists the help of Governor Slaton (Sean Allan Krill) to bring Leo home. The galvanizing number is followed by minutes of pointless, procedural wading. But there are some sublime moments.
As fellow factory employee and suspect Jim Conley, Alex Joseph Grayson wails the song “Feel the Rain Fall” which is great but comes out of nowhere.
And Diamond, whose combination of fragility and power is exciting for such a young actress, brings electricity to her duets with Platt, “It’s Not Over Yet” and the romantic “All the Wasted Time,” which melt away in the musical’s devastating conclusion.
While Arden’s production is splendidly (and predictably) intimate, the centerpiece of Dane Laffrey’s plan – a raised picket platform that appears like something you’d find along a parade route or during an execution – is a roadblock.
Spectators in the first orchestra should crane their necks to observe the many scenes at the top of the monolith, and the actors are forced to climb stairs to inhabit the strongest points on the stage. The incontrovertible fact that the entire forged was sitting on stage watching Leo’s fate was a bit too obvious and spatially limiting. For me, structure only takes away – it never adds anything.
Still, Arden has directed a fragile production of a musical that may often play like a sledgehammer and has a disturbingly compelling message against hate.