PARADE. To 24 November.
London
PARADE
by Alfred Uhry music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown co-conceived by Harold Prince.
Donmar Warehouse To 24 November 2007.
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Wed & Sat 2.30pm.
Audio-described 3 Nov2.30pm (+Touch Tour 1.30pm).
BSL Signed 30 Oct.
Captioned 23 Oct.
Runs 2hr 45min One interval.
TICKETS: 0870 060 6624
www.donmarwarehouse.com (no booking fee).
Review: Timothy Ramsden 29 September.
Strong score and resonant story hit the mark.
A New York musical about southern Whites persecuting a Jew might seem metropolitan culture’s revenge on swampland philistinism. Especially when Alfred Uhry’s story of pencil-manufactory supervisor Leo Frank’s arraignment for murder in 1913 omits to mention the New York Jewish wealth that historically went to Frank’s defence.
Someone killed 13-year old Mary Phagan when she called for her wages on the Confederation Memorial holiday. Uhry initially teases over the murderer. Finally, he only suggests who it was. Mainly, Parade dissects the political and religious forces that build against Frank, while showing him as a cold, unsympathetic individual. It’s late before he can admit his emotional reticence to his wife Lucille.
In a trial where the defence is nearly non-existent, Mark Bonnar’s prosecutor seems more sympathetic than the defendant, even when he hitches his reputation to a right-wing bigotry that cannot accept Jesus was a Jew.
From the musical’s opening, with a young soldier leaving his love to fight the Civil War as his older self looks on, before becoming a part of the 1913 action, southern pride impregnates the piece. Jayne Wisener doubles the picture-book blonde with the young soldier’s belle. But the musical has no heroes, filling the sympathy slot with Lucille as the loving wife working to free her husband.
It’s a grey piece visually, its spare set a single gallery over arches, little if any colour in its lighting. Only the Memorial Day bunting varies this, soon swept or tidied away. It is, after all, a society where pretty Mary was a factory-worker at 13.
Composer Jason Robert Brown uses choral Confederate pride to provide the necessary musical highs. It marks out people's genuine sense of place, however limiting that can also be. Director Rob Ashford’s choreography is integral, turning Frank into the leering monster of popular supposition, or showing the mob circling him with gloating venom.
Musically, the piece is least individual in its conventional love-duet. Mostly though, it’s full of a spare muscularity and individuality of line. With a subject that could easily find parallels a near-century on, this is a Parade well worth watching.
Young Soldier/Frankie Epps/Guard: Stuart Matthew Price.
Old Soldier/Judge Roan/Guard: Steven Page.
Lucille Frank: Lara Pulver.
Leo Frank: Bertie Carvel.
Governor Slaton/Britt Craig/Mr Peavy: Gary Milner.
Lila/Mary Phagan: Jayne Wisener.
Officer Starnes/Tom Watson: Norman Bowman.
Minnie McKnight/Angela: Malinda Parris.
Officer Ivey/Luther Rosser/Guard: Stephen Webb.
Newt Lee/Jim Conley/Riley: Shaun Escoffery.
Mrs Phagan/Sally Slaton: Helen Anker.
Hugh Dorsey: Mark Bonnar.
Iola Stover: Joanna Rainey.
Monteen: Zoe Rainey.
Essie: Celia Mei Rubin.
Director/Choreographer: Rob Ashford.
Designer: Christopher Oram.
Lighting: Neil Austin.
Sound: Terry Jardine & Nick Lidster for Autograph.
Orchestrator: David Cullen.
Musical Director: Thomas Murray.
Dialect coach: Penny Dyer.
Assistant director: Alex Sims.
Assistant choreographers: Pip Jordan, Spencer Solomon.
2007-10-01 15:19:14