Pent up emotion sears in an exceptional show
Caroline, Or Change Minerva Theatre, Chichester
Asinging washing machine? A crooning night bus? Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori’s 2003 musical set in Civil Rights-era Louisiana remains one of the most innovative modern examples of the form: a giddy marriage of fierce social observation and a gospel-and Motowninflected score delivered by a cast that includes kitchen appliances and a rising moon.
Daniel Evans may have made a bold choice in programming this exuberant musical fantasia as part of his inaugural season at Chichester, but it’s thoroughly vindicated by this pocketsized staging from Michael Longhurst, which emphatically drives home the show’s social currency 10 years after it premiered at the National.
Change takes on many meanings in Caroline, from the winds of revolution blowing through 1963 to the nickels and dimes that form the bedrock of the American dream. In a hellishly overheated basement in Lake Charles, Sharon D Clarke’s eponymous black maid Caroline is impervious to the former and – it soon turns out – tormented by the latter as she sweats out her days laundering clothes for the Gellman family. When her white employer Rose suggests Caroline keep the small change she finds in the pockets of Rose’s young stepson Noah as a way of teaching Noah the value of money, that small act of racial condescension exposes in microcosm the social and economic tensions that a few days later will erupt spectacularly in the death of JFK.
Longhurst’s up-close production releases all the pent-up emotion some critics have previously accused Kushner’s script of lacking. Clarke’s stony face barely conceals the tampeddown fury lingering beneath every pore: she’s a single parent made rigid by grief, self-disgust and her inability to hark the revolutionary call that has quickened the pulse of both her best friend, bent on self-improvement, and her teenage daughter Emmie (Abiona Omonua, outstanding), who rightfully sees the future as belonging to her. Meanwhile, Lauren Ward’s handwringing, well-meaning Rose flits miserably from room to room in the shadow of her grief-stricken husband’s first wife.
Longhurst’s lavish execution of Tesori’s score really captures the soul, from the pin-sharp Motown backing singers and Alex Gaumond’s keening klezmer clarinet to Ako Mitchell’s menacing spirituals and Clarke’s bitter, gut-wrenching stand out solo. Beautifully staged and impeccably performed, this is an exceptional show. Until June 3. Tickets: 01243 781312; cft.org.uk