LIES, LYNCHING, AND LOVE FUEL HISTORICAL YET TOPICAL PARADE
Some of the best theatrical musicals dramatize some of the worst scenarios: West Side Story's tragedy of star-crossed lovers, the miserable lives of the downtrodden in Les Miz. What redeems them are monumental stories, great music and songs, vital characters, sterling performances, and love.
The unlikely subject of Parade, on now from Vancouver's Raincity Musical Theatre, is a real-life 1915 lynching. Alfred Uhry's book, with music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown, tells the story of Jewish New Yorker Leo Frank, working as supervisor in his uncle's Atlanta pencil factory, who was found guilty on what was likely manufactured evidence for the murder of a young girl. He was sentenced to death, and hanged by a mob after his sentence was commuted to life in prison.
Originally produced in 1998 and successfully revived on Broadway last year, Parade has no shortage of contemporary resonance in its political extremism and corruption, antisemitism and racism. Director Chris Adams' ambitious Raincity production features a six-piece band with a cast of 20 performing on a tiny stage amid the audience in a Gastown storefront. Though successful on multiple levels, the production has to overcome acoustic issues, plus a chilly protagonist and a fairly dark, cynical libretto.
We meet Leo (Josh Epstein) bitching about what he considers the primitive South.
“This Yankee with a college education,” he complains, “is living in a world that time forgot.”
The play has opened with the townsfolk celebrating the glorious Confederate defeat of 50 years earlier. Leo doesn't even find much comfort in his lovely Southern wife Lucille (Miranda Macdougall), in contrast to young lovers Frankie (Zac Bellward) and Mary (Alina Fenrick).
When Mary is found murdered in the factory, Leo is arrested along with Newt (Ivy Charles), the Black night watchman.
District Attorney Dorsey (Warren Kimmel) is anxious to have Leo convicted because “hanging another Nigra ain't enough.” Governor Slaton (Tainui Kuru) and antisemitic agitator Tom Watson (Victor Hunter) put further pressure on him, along with a local reporter who smells a good story.
At the trial, Dorsey arranges false testimony from the Franks' maid Minnie (Alexis Hope), three factory girls, and janitor Jim Conley (Ricardo Pequenino) to incriminate Leo. This is where wife Lucille's strength and love nearly save the day. She convinces the governor to reinterview the false witnesses, most of whom recant. This section has the best singing in the show. Macdougall's Lucille shows her power and a lovely soprano, and Pequenino's Conley provides a dynamite chain-gang-style blues counterpoint.
Because the story is historically true, we know how it will end. But at least Leo and Lucille have a final moment of grace in a beautiful love duet.
The show has other strong musical elements, including Kimmel's rich baritone, vocals by Bellward, Charles, and Hope, and choral director Dawn Pemberton's arrangements of the choruses.
But musical director Sean Bayntum has sometimes misjudged his singers' ability to overcome the band's accompaniment, especially its drums and horns. Even sitting in the second row, two metres from the three-sided stage, I often couldn't hear the lyrics unless the singer faced me directly.
Although the production has no real dancing, kudos to
choreographer Nicol Spinola and director Adams for seamlessly manoeuvring the large cast through the tiny space. Nice period costumes, too, from Christina Sinosich.
Parade lacks the charisma of the great musicals as well as their stirring arias. But its smart script along with Raincity's adventurous staging and solid performances make it a highlight of Vancouver's spring season.