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Presented in its stripped-down chamber version, this production of the Tony Award-winning musical Parade
places its orchestra center stage. That's where it belongs: The most
impressive element of this generally impressive show is Jason Robert
Brown's seething, chromatic score. The musical, set in Georgia in 1913,
is based on the true story of Leo Frank (Andrew Bray), a Jewish factory
superintendent who was falsely convicted of murdering a young girl. As
if Charles Ives were rifling through the dark political unconscious of
the United States, the music collages bright Americana melodies with
jagged modernist atonality. We can't help but hear unsettling poisons
seeping through the cheery echoes of folk song and Tin Pan Alley. And
that's the show's deepest and most radical message: When America
celebrates itself, it celebrates centuries of murder and racialized
dispossession. Under Paul Angelo's direction, Staged! has assembled a
cast of fine-throated performers for Brown and Alfred Uhry's
underappreciated gem. But when they're talking rather than singing,
issues arise: Bray resorts a little too easily to shouting; there's all
too much Foghorn Leghorn in Shawn Rogers' good ol' boy prosecutor; and
the centralized orchestra leaves the action restricted to the margins in
the close confines of the Brunish Theatre. But these are decidedly
quibbles. The company gives a sizzling performance that is all too
relevant after this hot Ferguson summer.
SEE IT: Parade is at the Brunish Theatre, 1111 SW Broadway, 800-273-1530. 7:30 pm Thursdays-Saturdays and 2 pm Sundays through Oct. 12. $15-$31.
WWeek 2015