By Carol Davis
SAN DIEGO — In 1998 the Alfred Uhry (book) Jason Robert Brown (music and lyrics) musical drama Parade closed shortly after it opened at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theatre. Lincoln Center co produced the show with the Canadian producing company Livent, Inc. One doesn’t usually associate politics with theatre but politics rears its ugly head everywhere. That’s history past and present. The show ‘was scuttled’ in 1999 after 84 performances. Ironically both Uhry and Brown won Tony’s for their work on the show. In an interview with Show Music magazine in 2000, Pulitzer Prize winning author Alfred Uhry said, “We just got screwed”.
Alfred Uhry, Atlanta born and bred penned Last Night of Ballyhoo and Driving Miss Daisy among other notable works. Both plays are set in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s not unusual that Parade, which is set in Georgia, but also has an historical link to the Uhry family as well, is something he holds close to his heart.
Parade recounts the story of Northern born and educated Leo Frank (Brandon Joel Maier) “who became the only known Jew to be lynched on American soil/” Frank was a Jew and a Yankee who married a southern belle, Lucille (Sandy Campbell is radiant in this role) and settled in Atlanta after being offered the job of superintendent of The National Pencil Factory, which in the play is described as being owned by his wife’s uncle. Frank is accused of murdering 13-year-old Mary Phagan, (“Ah. Not Fagin as in Dickens. Phagan as in phalanx,” Frank chuckles at his private joke) one of the young girls who worked in the Factory and who just happened to come to his office that day for her pay.
(Uhry’s grandmother’s brother (his great uncle) owned the pencil factory where the murder took place AND his grandmother had been friends with Leo’s widow, Lucille.)
In 2007 director-choreographer Ashford presented the new reworked Parade at London’s Donmar Warehouse in London with less pomp and a more streamlined look than the piece by Hal Prince, who co conceived the original. A few years ago Parade made a splash at The Mark Taper in Los Angeles starring ‘local boy makes good’, Christian Hoff of Jersey Boys fame. It is being remounted now at the The Cygnet Theatre through April 29 and it is spectacular in its dramatic effectiveness, musical score and frankly, overall production.
This is musical drama at its highest level with part operatic, part ragtime, part turn of the century melodies, military drums that rock the soul, stir the emotions, rattle the heart and convince anyone seeing it that it deserves another shot at Broadway or at least to be seen by every school child across the country as was done at some morning performances for the LA Schools.
Parade’s prologue is set in Marietta, Georgia in 1861-1865 during the Civil War (The Old Red Hills of Home”) with the send off a newly enlisted Confederate soldier (Jacob Caltrider) “Young Soldier” and segues to 1913 to the Frank house. It is fifty years after the Civil War and the big Confederate Memorial Day Parade is being touted. Lucille Frank is annoyed to learn that her husband Leo is going off to work rather than a picnic and the annual celebration she was looking to attend.
Frank is a workaholic but that’s the least of his not-so-endearing qualities. He is standoffish, arrogant, somewhat haughty in his relationship with his young bride and not a little disgruntled about being in the south. These attitudes will unfortunately, come back to haunt him. “For the life of me I can’t understand how God created you people Jewish and Southern at the same time,” he counters back at Lucille when she chides him for using the Yiddish phrase meshuggeneh to describe the South’s celebrating a war they lost.
But that was the least of his worries on that fateful day. By the time Frank gets to work, gives young Mary her pay check (with the festivities heard off in the background), goes home for the day and is hauled away in the middle of the night to the police station to be questioned about the brutal murder and rape of young Mary Phagan, (Samantha Littleford) to his singing Sh’ma Yisorel with a noose around his neck, this Parade offers some of the best live courtroom drama, laced with sensational yellow journalism, religious hatred, prejudiced jurors, an over zealous DA, Hugh Dorsey (Davis Kirk Grant), corruption at the highest levels in Governor Slaton administration (Rick D. Meads is also the crazed journalist Britt Craig) and more southern cruelty one can imagine.
As they say on one of the television channels, “This is Real TV not actual.” Only this real drama in the life of Leo Frank is a black mark on history and the south and a wrong that was eventually brought to national attention. After Frank’s conviction Dr. David Marx, rabbi of Atlanta’s great Reform Temple traveled to New York to alert American Jewry that … anti Semitism played a role in Frank’s conviction.
From 1913 to1915 Frank sat in jail while his case wound its way through the courts until the governor commuted his death sentence and had him transferred to a work camp where he was later lynched and hanged by a mob of angry, anti Semitic men of the good city and state of Atlanta, Ga. Noted also that the KKK had reared it’s ugly head again after former U.S. Representative Tom Watson, in his own newspaper publications called for its revival calling Frank ‘a rich northern Jew’.
“Jew money has debased us, bought us, and sold us – and laughs at us”, Tom Watson (the very strong and convincing Geno Carr) editor of the Jeffersonian wrote. His yellow journalism inflamed public opinion in the ‘case against Leo Frank’. It was Watson also who convinced DA Hugh Dorsey to run against Governor Slaton for being too lenient with his commutation of Frank’s death sentence. And might I add that in his writings he attacked Jews, blacks and Catholics. “In the name of God, what are the people to do?”
Under the deft direction of Sean Murray, the story moves along a pretty fast clip, while leaving nothing out, building like stepping stones, the methodical anatomy of a lynching crafted for and develoedp by an angry mob spurred on by hatred and fear. Sean Fanning’s minimalist sets make the transitions workable. The stark wooden planked stage with a staircase on either side is useful for coming and goings in the Frank home, the jail scenes and courtroom drama. Tables and chairs either carried in by the players or pushed in to appropriate places; the office of Leo Frank and (using imagination) the high lofty place of the judge (Steve Gunderson) looking down and supervising the courtroom drama that eventually brings Leo Frank to his undue justice.
Hanging above them all is an American eagle with the flag draped over it and a pastoral scene, later replaced by a single tree, in the background. This is witnessed by a strolling couple of an eery looking Confederate sweetheart and her soldier about to go off to war. She with her parasol twirling over her shoulder, broad rimmed bonnet and full crinoline dress symbolic of the past and he standing straight and determined, gun over shoulder.
With Murray’s direction and a marvelous cast Parade brings to the fore all the drama needed to engage. Brandon Joel Maier is just right as the hand wringing aloof Frank always feeling like an outsider looking in on his life. All of his mannerisms speak to an absent yet haughty young man who just doesn’t make fitting in a part of his persona.
Sandy Campbell’s Lillian is, at the outset, a dutiful wife proud of her heritage yet a little put off by her husband’s remoteness and superiority for treating her like a subordinate who knows nothing. Her path is also painful as she works to bring more humanity to an emotionally closed down husband while trying to keep the noose away from his neck. Her performance is beautifully nuanced.
When Campbell sings, “You Don’t Know this Man” your heart breaks. “It’s Hard to Speak My Heart,” Frank implores as he stands before the court to tell his side of the story. “I’m not a man who bears his soul….”
Together and in prison Maier’s Leo finally realizes the jewel he has in his Lillian and he softens and opens to her love. It is here they finally become a couple whose barriers are broken down when he knows she is a woman to be reckoned with as she convinces the Governor to reopen the case after she shows him the inconsistencies of the first one. This is the first time we see him as human and the first time their romance blooms. It’s one of the highs, if you will, of their strained relationship and a welcome one at that. Unfortunately it’s their last union.
David Kirk Grant is perfect as the smooth and ambitious DA Hugh Dorsey, whose body language says it all. He is intense and driven, yet soft spoken when rounding up witnesses coaxing and intimidating them in order to get evidence against Leo. His solid build and strong voice are a convincing combination that works well here. Rick D. Meads is perfect as the smooth talking; cool calm and collected Governor who cuts a charming swathe doing the cakewalk with Georgia’s finest.
When given the case, Dorsey dismissed the obvious suspects, Newt Lee, the factory’s night watchman and Jim Conley (strikingly portrayed and gorgeously sung by Bryan Barbarin whose huge presence is all encompassing) when Lee accuses Frank of raping and killing young Mary thereby forcing the attention away from him, referring to himself as ‘their Negro’.
Barbarin has triple duty as Newt Lee, the night watchman, Jim Conley, the janitor, chain gang escapee, and Gov. Slaton’s manservant (“Rumblin’ and a Rollin’). His rendition of “Blues: Feel the Rain” as he’s back on the chain gang crushing boulders with a guard’s rifle to his back, is too realistic to ignore. His powerful voice resonates pain enough to make the scruff of your neck prickle. When recalling his alibi, a stirring “That’s What He Said” brought the company a rousing round of applause.
Geno Carr, Tom Stephenson and Steve Gunderson all have many roles and each plays them out beautifully. Of note, Carr’s Tom Watson (“Hammer of Justice”) is most powerful as the arbiter in Dorsey’s transition from DA to Governor and Gunderson’s Judge Roan’s little chat with Dorsey at the river’s edge with fishing poles in hand show the back room shenanigans that go in politics as usual.
David Brennen’s choreography is not only symbolic of a South past and present, but in one scene after Leo has been found guilty by a ‘jury of his peers’ all the spectators dance around in a circle (circling him) with their hands in the air as if they were dancing the Hora at a traditional Jewish wedding. The symbolism of celebration did not go unnoticed there. On a lighter note the high-energy period Confederated Memorial Day celebration dance with the whole ensemble is cause for another celebration.
Shirley Pierson’s period costumes are beautifully worn and complimentary to all. The society women look elegant in their white flowing gowns and day dresses. Campbell’s outfits are beautifully tailored and more than upper class stylish. The men look fittingly proper and, again, period prefect. Peter Herman’s wigs are fine and Bonnie L. Durban’s props make this one of the most elegant looking and finely staged shows of Cygnet’s history.
Musical director Billy Thompson and his eight musicians add just another layer of depth to Cygnet’s already list of accomplishments. The band complements the actors allowing them and the very strong ensemble to be heard without compromise. Overall, however, Brown’s music and lyrics are ever fitting for this tragic event.
As a postscript, the formation of the Anti Defamation League was a result of the anti-Semitism that reared its ugly head in Georgia and its work continues today.
Bigotry, racism, hate, fear, misogyny and homophobia cannot and will not be tolerated. Unfortunately, we are seeing too much of this today in our political discourse and sadly the effects will spill over to another tragedy if our course is not corrected. Perhaps this show should be mandatory for all school children here and around the country. Requirement for entrance is a parent, guardian or a politician.
See you at the theatre.
Dates: through April 29th
Organization: Cygnet Theatre Company
Phone: 619-337-1525
Production Type: Musical Drama
Where: 4040Twiggs St., Old Town
Ticket Prices: $39.00-$59.00
Web: Cygnettheatre.com
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Davis is a San Diego-based theatre critic. She may be contacted at carol.davis@sdjewishworld.com