Review: The Time Has Come for this Thrilling 'Parade'

Nearly 25 years into the new century, the time was right for this musical to succeed, as it did on Broadway two years ago (with Ben Platt) in a run that won a Best Musical revival Tony, and in the riveting National tour, currently at Boston's Emerson-Colonial Theatre through March 23. The tour casts newcomers Max Chernin and Talia Suskauer, both terrific, as the self-involved Leo Frank and his conflicted wife, Lucille, and they anchor the sure-voiced ensemble who do justice to composer Jason Robin Brown's expansive score, which was rescored for Brown for the revival. For the tour, a smaller ensemble (nine pieces) is in the pit, ably led by musical director and conductor Charlie Alterman.

Uhry based his libretto on a real-life incident that received much national attention in 1913: The arrest, trial, and conviction of Leo Frank, a Brooklyn Jew who found himself living (uncomfortably) in Atlanta, where he had taken a high-paying job as the superintendent of the National Pencil Company. (Uhry had a personal connection to the story — his grandfather owned the company.) Frank marries a local Jewish woman, Lucille, but misses the community he had at home in which religion played more of a role. There is tension in the marriage, as Lucille can't understand his reluctance to assimilate to Southern ways, which includes not working on a state holiday, Confederate Memorial Day. But he dismisses her by wondering why people would want to memorialize a war that they lost. (It was a line that brought applause from the opening night audience.)

What happens next has Leo charged for the murder of a 13-year-old girl, Mary Phagan (Olivia Goosman), in the factory later that day. There's a double whammy of prosecutor Hugh Dancy (Andrew Samonsky), who is so hell-bent on conviction that he coaxes witnesses (both Black and white) into giving false testimony, and Thomas Watson (Griffin Binnicker), an anti-Semitic publisher in league with oily reporter Britt Craig (Michael Tacconi), who taint the public with hateful untruths about Leo. Found guilty in an appalling show trial, he is sentenced to death. After his numerous appeals fail and his execution is imminent, he agrees to allow Lucille help him to get a new trial. She succeeds by boldly confronting Governor John Slaton (Chris Shyer), who joins her in investigating the case. They discover Dancy's subterfuge, and Frank's sentence is commuted to life. His marriage also takes on a new meaning as he realizes Lucille's devotion to him. But his victory is short-lived: Vigilantes kidnap and hang him in the town where Mary Phagan was born.

One of the remarkable things about the touring production of "Parade" is how director Michael Arden parses the complexity of the story with its many characters and jarring subtexts into a comprehensible whole, with a criminal procedural in the first half and a slow-burning love story in the second. He sets much of the action on a platform that sits center stage while the company sits on either side during the first half, as if watching a sporting event. (The dark, minimalist set design is by Dane Laffrey) It is a smart touch that underscores how this sensational case gripped not only the citizens of Atlanta, but the nation.

Arden stages the first half at warp speed, (especially the trial sequence, reflecting how quickly Leo was railroaded to conviction), then adopts a more leisurely pace in the second, as Lucille leads the charge to unravel the case. He smartly rethinks the piece as a docudrama annotated throughout by projections (designed by Sven Ortel) that ground the events with authentic images of the participants and locales. Ortel's projection work in tandem with Heather Gilbert's highly effective lighting design.

Uhry's book focuses more on the fleshing out of Leo's story than on Leo himself, who, for the first half, remains a cipher — unhappy at first, and at odds with Lucille, he is a stranger in a strange land as he wanders amidst the happy Atlantans celebrating Confederacy Memorial Day. Once arrested, he is frustrated and appalled by his legal dilemma, but remains short with his wife, who is overwhelmed by the negative attention he is given. The show's emotional trajectory follows how Lucille's reluctant devotion gives way to an urgent advocacy that saves husband and their marriage. By putting them in clear focus, Arden gets to this dark musical's emotional center.

That Harold Prince conceived of "Parade" and directed its first production may be the reason Brown's work here has been compared to that of Prince's most frequent collaborator, Stephen Sondheim. (Prince asked Sondheim to write the score, but he declined.) But where Sondheim came from classical musical theater world, Brown comes from that of pop, so beneath the pastiche of period styles (ragtime, folk, spirituals, vaudeville, Sousa-like marches, and Strauss-inspired waltzes), there's a driving modern voice that echoes Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, and Joni Mitchell (amongst others) — and, yes, Sondheim; but not Rodgers and Hammerstein. His score gives this period piece an insistent, contemporary edge.

The music in this touring production is resonantly performed throughout, from the gorgeous choral arrangements (heard in the opening "The Old Red Hills of Home" and the spiritual "There is a Fountain") to the big-voiced character songs. Chief amongst them is "That's What He Said," Jim Conley's false testimony, which is fervently sung by Ramone Nelson with a call-and-response dynamic right out of a revival meeting. Another standout is "Rumblin' and a Rollin'," a bluesy commentary on how Leo isn't the only victim of injustice, wryly sung by Prentiss E. Mouton and Oluchi Nwaokorie.

Chernin and Suskauer shine in "This Is Not Over Yet," a stirring, upbeat number that celebrates Lucille's efforts, and "All the Wasted Time," a heartbreaking duet in which they finally realize the bond between them. What proves to be most chilling moment comes when Frank is on the gallows and sings a Hebrew prayer, "Sh'ma," to the melody of "The Old Red Hills of Home," the Antebellum anthem that opens and closes the show.

It is not surprising that Frank's death came at the same time "The Birth of a Nation," a film that celebrated the Ku Klux Klan, became Hollywood's first blockbuster. The case was said to be instrumental in the revival of the Klan; in Georgia, a new chapter was formed that called itself the Knights of Mary Phagan. After Frank's hanging, Tom Watson wrote, "the voice of the people is the voice of God," and the lynch mob, comprised of some ex- Georgia governors and local mayors, were never indicted.

Frank's trial also is said to be instrumental in the forming of the Anti-Defamation League. It would take 71 years for Georgia to commute the Frank's sentence, doing so in 1986. At the production's conclusion, a slide explains that in May, 2019 an investigation was begun to determine if Frank should be officially exonerated; that investigation has yet to reach a conclusion. It will be interesting to see the response when the tour moves to Atlanta for a week-long run on April 1, and brings the case back to where it all began.

"Parade" continues at the Emerson Colonial Theatre, 106 Bolyston Street, Boston, MA through March 23. For ticket information, follow this link.

For the additional dates on the tour, visit the show's website,