The Tony-winning revival of 'Parade' turns a miscarriage of justice into gripping musical drama

Leo Frank, the superintendent of a pencil mill successful Georgia, was accused of murdering a young employee, 13-year-old Mary Phagan. His 1913 proceedings led to his condemnation contempt shoddy grounds and the manipulations of an ambitious prosecuting attorney, who shamelessly preyed connected the prejudices of the jury.

After a bid of failed appeals, Frank’s condemnation was commuted by the governor, but helium was kidnapped and lynched by a mob enraged that his decease condemnation wasn’t being imposed. The communicative garnered nationalist attraction and threw a spotlight connected the responsibility lines of our transgression justness system.

This acheronian section successful American past mightiness not look suitable for philharmonic treatment. Docudrama would beryllium the safer mode to go, fixed the gravity of the material. But playwright Alfred Uhry and composer and lyricist Jason Robert Brown had a imaginativeness of what they could uniquely bring to the retelling of Frank’s story.

Olivia Goosman, from left, Jack Roden and the nationalist touring institution of “Parade.”

(Joan Marcus)

Their 1998 philharmonic was a captious deed but a hard sell. More admired than beloved, the amusement has extended an unfastened situation to theatre artists drawn to the blase majesty of Brown’s Tony-winning people but daunted by the expansive scope of Uhry’s Tony-winning book.

Director Michael Arden has answered the telephone successful his Tony-winning revival, which has arrived astatine the Ahmanson Theatre successful crisp form. The production, which launched astatine New York City Center earlier transferring to Broadway, proved that a succès d’estime could besides beryllium an emotionally stirring hit.

“Parade” covers a batch of cultural, historical, and governmental ground. The trial, prefaced by a Civil War snapshot that sets the enactment successful the due context, takes up overmuch of the archetypal act. But the philharmonic besides tells the communicative of a matrimony that grows successful extent arsenic outer world becomes much treacherous.

It’s a batch to benignant through, but Arden, moving manus successful manus with scenic decorator Dane Laffrey, has conceptualized the staging successful a neo-Brechtian manner that allows the humanities inheritance to beryllium seamlessly transmitted. Sven Ortel‘s projections smoothly integrate the indispensable information, allowing the absorption to beryllium connected the quality figures caught successful the snares of American bigotry and barbarism.

Danielle Lee Greaves, left, and Talia Suskauer successful the nationalist circuit of “Parade.” Suskauer plays Lucille, Leo’s wife.

(Joan Marcus)

The 2007 Donmar Warehouse revival, directed by Rob Ashford, came to the Mark Taper Forum successful 2009 with the committedness that it had yet figured retired the musical. The accumulation was scaled down, but the afloat potency of “Parade” wasn’t released. An earnest furniture of “importance” clouded the audience’s affectional transportation to the characters, adjacent if the Taper was a much hospitable abstraction for this melodramatic philharmonic than the Ahmanson.

Arden’s production, astatine erstwhile intimate and epic, comes done beautifully nevertheless connected the larger stage. “Parade,” which delves into antisemitism, systemic bias successful our judicial strategy and the powerfulness of a wily demagogue to stoke atavistic hatred for self-gain, has a disconcerting timeliness. But the accumulation — momentous successful its taxable matter, quality successful its theatrical benignant — lets the modern parallels talk for themselves.

Ben Platt, who played Leo, and Micaela Diamond, who played Leo’s wife, Lucille, made this Broadway revival sing successful the astir personally textured terms. For the tour, these roles are taken implicit by Max Chernin and Talia Suskauer. Both are excellent, if little radiantly idiosyncratic. The modesty of their portrayals, however, subtly draws america in.

Chris Shyer, left, and Alison Ewing play Governor Slaton and his wife, 2 of the much noble figures successful the show.

(Joan Marcus)

Chernin’s Leo is simply a cerebral, Ivy League-educated New Yorker mislaid successful the minutiae of his mill responsibilities. A numbers antheral much than a radical person, he’s a food retired of h2o successful Atlanta, arsenic helium spells retired successful the opus “How Can I Call This Home?” Platt played up the drama of the quintessential Jewish outsider successful a onshore of Confederate memorials and drawling manners. Chernin, much reserved successful his manner, seethes with futile terror.

The withholding quality of Chernin’s Leo poses immoderate theatrical risks but goes a agelong mode toward explaining however the character’s otherness could beryllium turned against him successful specified a malignant way. His Leo makes small effort to acceptable in, and he’s resented each the much for his lofty detachment.

It takes immoderate clip for Suskauer’s Lucille to travel into her own, some arsenic a woman and a theatrical character. It isn’t until the 2nd fractional that, confronting the imminent decease of her husband, she asserts herself and rises successful stature successful some Leo’s eyes and audience’s. But a glimmer of this imaginable comes retired successful the archetypal enactment erstwhile Lucille sings with plaintive condemnation “You Don’t Know This Man,” 1 of the standout numbers successful a people distinguished little by idiosyncratic tunes than by the ingenious deployment of an array of philharmonic styles (from subject beats to people ballads and from hymns to jazz) to archer the communicative from antithetic points of view.

Max Chernin’s Leo is simply a cerebral, Ivy League-educated New Yorker mislaid successful the minutiae of his mill responsibilities.

(Joan Marcus)

“This Is Not Over Yet” raises anticipation that Leo and Lucille volition find a mode to flooded the injustice that has engulfed them. History can’t beryllium revised, but wherever there’s a opus there’s ever a accidental successful the theater. Reality, however, painfully darkens successful the poignant duet “All the Wasted Time,” which Lucille and Leo sing from his situation compartment — a seized infinitesimal of marital bliss from a hubby and woman who, arsenic the past hr approaches, person yet go adjacent partners.

Ramone Nelson, who plays Jim Conley, a Black idiosyncratic astatine the mill who is suborned to attest against Leo, delivers the rousing “Blues: Feel The Rain Fall,” a concatenation pack fig that electrifies the location contempt the defiance of a antheral who, having known small justice, has nary involvement successful defending it. Conley has been sought retired by Governor Slaton (a mildly authoritative Chris Shyer), who has reopened the probe astatine Lucille’s urging lone to uncover contradictions and inconsistencies successful the case. He’s 1 of the much noble figures, nevertheless reluctant, joined to a pistillate (a vivid Alison Ewing) who won’t fto him betray his integrity, adjacent if it’s excessively little, excessively late.

Hugh Dorsey (Andrew Samonsky), the prosecuting lawyer preoccupied with his future, has nary regrets aft railroading Leo successful a politicized proceedings that volition outgo him his life. Dorsey is 1 of the main villains of the musical, but Samonsky resists melodrama to find a credible intelligence throughline for a antheral who has staked his vocation connected the ends justifying the means.

Lucille (Talia Suskauer, left) and Leo (Max Chernin) sing a poignant duet from his situation cell.

(Joan Marcus)

Britt Craig (Michael Tacconi), a down-on-his-luck newsman who takes delight successful demonizing Leo successful the press, dances connected his table erstwhile he’s landed different slanderous scoop. But adjacent he’s much pathetic than hateful. One motion of the production’s Brechtian quality is the mode the structural forces astatine enactment successful nine are revealed to beryllium much culpable than immoderate idiosyncratic character. The press, similar the authorities and the judiciary, is portion of a strategy that’s poisoned from within.

The harking backmost to the Civil War isn’t successful vain. “Parade” understands that America’s archetypal misdeed — slavery and the economical apparatus that sanctioned the dehumanization of groups deemed arsenic “other” — can’t beryllium divorced from Leo’s story.

The philharmonic ne'er loses show of mediocre Mary Phagan (Olivia Goosman), a flighty underage miss who didn’t merit to beryllium savagely killed astatine work. It’s exceedingly improbable that Leo had thing to bash with her murder, but the amusement doesn’t efface her tragedy, adjacent arsenic it reckons with the gravity of Leo’s.

When Chernin’s Leo raises his dependable successful Jewish supplication earlier helium is hanged, the representation of a antheral whose beingness was wantonly destroyed is momentarily restored. His lynching can’t beryllium undone, but the dignity of his sanction tin beryllium redeemed and our corporate sins tin beryllium called to relationship successful a gripping philharmonic that hasn’t truthful overmuch been revived arsenic reborn.