Parade is the true story of Leo Frank, a Jewish factory manager in Atlanta who was convicted in 1913 of murdering Mary Phagan, a 13-year-old worker. Anti-Semitism, corrupt local politics and crowd hysteria influenced his conviction and when his sentence in 1915 was commuted from death to life imprisonment, he was kidnapped from jail by a mob and lynched.
I had not seen the show when it premiered at Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theater in 1998. It got mixed reviews ("solemn," said Ben Brantley in the NY Times) and closed just two months later.
It was the third concert production of a Broadway musical recently staged by Manhattan Concert Productions (MCP), which also puts together music programs at Carnegie Hall and other venues.
MCP maintains a 30-member house orchestra, the New York City Chamber Orchestra, which proved to be a most impressive ensemble.
Composer (and lyricist) Brown conducted choir and orchestra with skilled assurance, showcasing his remarkable score to its best advantage. I was fortunate enough to see the original 2002 production of Brown's first musical, The Last Five Years, with Norbert Leo Butz and Sherie Rene Scott, and completely adored his most recent show, The Bridges of Madison County. With Parade, I'm a confirmed Jason Robert Brown admirer.
The story opens with the sunniest of American small-town traditions - a parade, in this case, the Confederate Memorial Day parade in Marietta, Ga., where a Civil War veteran sings "The Old Red Hills of Home," a skillful homage by Brown to Southern folk songs.
Quickly, however, alienation arrives as Frank, clearly uncomfortable as a Jewish northern transplant, sings "How Can I Call This Home?" and tell his wife that "I can't see how God created you Jewish and Southern at the same time."
Gary Griffin's direction and Brown's musical direction kept up the tension as Frank is arrested and local law enforcement and politicians whip up a frenzy designed to railroad him. However, the limitations of a semi-staged production and a balky sound system meant that sometimes it was hard to keep track of the characters.
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| Laura Benanti as Lucille Frank and Jeremy Jordan as Leo Frank |
Jordan affectingly transmitted Leo's loneliness-in-a-crowd unease and he and Benanti climaxed the show with the duet "All the Wasted Time" as Lucille crusades for justice for him.
Joshua Henry, last seen in Violet, here brings down the house as a factory janitor and suspect in Phagan's murder, pointing the finger at Frank in "That'sWhat he Said."
My connection at this show was to Ron Cameron-Lewis, an emeritus faculty member of Sheridan College's top-notch music theater degree program. The Mississauga, Ontario-based college mounted a production of Parade last year and composer/lyricist Brown invited 35 students to join the 200-voice choir that would be performing in the concert. (Sheridan also hosted a pre-show reception that brought back alumni starring in such Broadway shows as Beautiful and The Book of Mormon.)
Chorus members also came from ten other schools and from community choirs, selling out Avery Fisher Hall with friends and family, who were quite vocal in their enthusiasm and reactions to the show.
Given the subject matter, I'm not sure I'd be playing the CD of Parade regularly, but then again, Sweeney Todd is a favorite. I do know that I'm very glad to have made the acquaintance of this haunting show and to have filled out my knowledge of Jason Robert Brown's musicals.
"I can't see how God created you Jewish and Southern at the same time."
ReplyDeleteYeah, I'm soooo sure he said this in real life as well, considering Leo Frank was born in Texas, and his parents were Southern Jews. Is the implication that Frank was mentally retarded, like the playwright?
For future reference:
Actors of fully Jewish background: -Logan Lerman, Natalie Portman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Mila Kunis, Bar Refaeli, James Wolk, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Julian Morris, Adam Brody, Esti Ginzburg, Kat Dennings, Gabriel Macht, Erin Heatherton, Odeya Rush, Anton Yelchin, Paul Rudd, Scott Mechlowicz, Lisa Kudrow, Lizzy Caplan, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Gal Gadot, Debra Messing, Robert Kazinsky, Melanie Laurent, Shiri Appleby, Justin Bartha, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Margarita Levieva, Elizabeth Berkley, Halston Sage, Seth Gabel, Skylar Astin, Mia Kirshner, Alden Ehrenreich, Eric Balfour, Jason Isaacs, Jon Bernthal, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy.
Andrew Garfield is Jewish, too (though I don’t know if both of his parents are).
Actors with Jewish mothers and non-Jewish fathers -Jake Gyllenhaal, Dave Franco, James Franco, Scarlett Johansson, Daniel Day-Lewis, Daniel Radcliffe, Alison Brie, Eva Green, Joaquin Phoenix, River Phoenix, Emmy Rossum, Rashida Jones, Jennifer Connelly, Sofia Black D’Elia, Nora Arnezeder, Goldie Hawn, Ginnifer Goodwin, Amanda Peet, Eric Dane, Jeremy Jordan, Joel Kinnaman, Ben Barnes, Patricia Arquette, Kyra Sedgwick, Dave Annable, Ryan Potter.
Actors with Jewish fathers and non-Jewish mothers, who themselves were either raised as Jews and/or identify as Jews: -Ezra Miller, Gwyneth Paltrow, Alexa Davalos, Nat Wolff, Nicola Peltz, James Maslow, Josh Bowman, Winona Ryder, Michael Douglas, Ben Foster, Jamie Lee Curtis, Nikki Reed, Zac Efron, Jonathan Keltz, Paul Newman.
Oh, and Ansel Elgort’s father is Jewish, though I don’t know how Ansel was raised.
Actors with one Jewish-born parent and one parent who converted to Judaism -Dianna Agron, Sara Paxton (whose father converted, not her mother), Alicia Silverstone, Jamie-Lynn Sigler.
There is a mountain of evidence proving that Leo Frank is guilty. The Frank forces tried to pin the crime on the Black night watchman, Newt Lee, using a planted bloody shirt. Then they planted fake evidence (a bloody club and pay stub) trying to implicate the Black sweeper, Jim Conley. The Frank forces were caught faking this evidence in 1913, and no one then or now disputes that it was faked.
ReplyDeleteThese are not the acts of an innocent man.
They are still trying to convince people that Conley did it. Conley had just been paid more than five times what Mary Phagan had in her purse. They want us to believe he killed her for $1.20. Sure he did.
And Conley would have had to kill her right next to the unlocked front door, in the highest-traffic part of the building, where anyone could walk in at any time, and where several people had walked by in just the last few minutes -- and within 30 feet of his boss. Wow, what a plausible story.
Besides the victim, there were only four people in the building. And three of them obviously didn't do it. That leaves Leo Frank.
See the American Mercury's article, "100 Reasons Leo Frank is Guilty" for all the details.