On the first night of previews for the Broadway revival of Jason Robert Brown’s musical Parade, members of one of the country’s largest antisemitic groups protested this show about one of the country’s most hideous examples of antisemitism, the trial and subsequent lynching of Leo Frank. 2023 and 1913. New York and Atlanta. Will this hatred ever stop?
Frank was a Brooklyn-born Jew who moved to the South after marrying an Atlanta woman whose uncle, the owner of the National Pencil Company, gave him a job as superintendent. On the day the city was holding its Memorial Day parade – Leo in the musical (Ben Platt) finds it astonishing that they celebrate the day they lost the war – the body of 13-year-old factory worker Mary Phagan was found raped and murdered in the basement. With no evidence of Leo’s guilt but plenty pointing toward the Black handyman, the unscrupulously ambitious district attorney fabricated a case against Frank that assured a guilty verdict. He had political ambitions and knew how to play to voters who want “to sing Dixie once again,” as the memorable opening song, “The Old Red Hills of Home,” says. They would rather blame a northern Jew than a Black southerner.
The modern-day protestors outside the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre told ticket holders they were seeing a show about a pedophile. Even now they won’t acknowledge the injustice done to Frank.
Although it seems an unlikely plot for a Broadway musical, this 1998 show has what good drama needs, the power to shock and move its audience. I saw the original and was blown away. I had known the story since I was in my 20s. Brown’s songs (music and lyrics, for which he won a Tony in 1999) and Alfred Uhry’s Tony Award-winning book bring it to life in a way I couldn’t have imagined.
Micaela Diamond, who made her Broadway debut as Babe, the youngest Cher in The Cher Show, movingly portrays Lucille, Leo’s wife, in this revival directed by Michael Arden. They have strong voices and play well together but they didn’t engage me the way the original players, Brent Carver and Carolee Carmello, did, but maybe that’s because nothing can replace seeing this powerful show for the first time.
Dane Laffrey’s set was a bit off-putting, a giant dais on which most of the scenes take place. It made the action seem distant to me. I liked Susan Hilferty’s period costumes and Heather Gilbert’s brooding lighting.
Erin Rose Doyle is a sweet Mary and Paul Alexander Nolan embodies the ruthless district attorney, Hugh Dorsey, who uses his guilty verdict to propel him into the governorship. The election is two years after Leo’s conviction. Leo has remained in jail, filing appeal after appeal, which were all unsuccessful. During that time pressure has been put on Governor Slaton (Sean Allan Krill) by elected officials around the country, as well as influential individuals like Henry Ford, to reconsider the case. Lucille is the strongest fighter for this cause, working with Slaton to reveal Dorsey’s manipulation of the case, which included coaching Mary’s young co-workers to say Frank had sexually harassed them.
Slaton assures his opponent’s victory when he becomes the one honorable player in the Frank tragedy. With Leo’s execution five weeks away, Slaton commutes his sentence to life in prison, delivering what to me are the play’s most memorable lines: “Two thousand years ago another governor washed his hands and turned a Jew over to a mob. Ever since then that governor’s name has been a curse. If today another Jew went to his grave because I failed to do my duty, I would all my life find his blood on my hands.”
This gives Leo and Lucille hope and they share the beautiful duet “This Is Not Over Yet.” I don’t think, since this is such a historic case, that it’s a spoiler alert to say their joy is short-lived. A mob invaded the prison, took Leo to a remote location and hung him.
Cast members all appear to be giving 100 percent to tell this story, which, sadly, is far too timely. As for poor Leo Frank, a projection on the dais says his case was reopened by the Fulton County district attorney’s office in 2019. It is still ongoing. And so is the tragedy.
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