The 'Parade' revival is all too timely

 

     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.

Maureen McGovern: Creating hope in life with dementia

 

Maureen McGovern was a 23-year-old folk singer in 1972 when she was chosen to record “The Morning After” for The Poseidon Adventure.  The song and movie became megahits and launched her four-decade career as a concert performer, recording artist and Broadway musical theatre actress. All of that changed several years ago when she was diagnosed with posterior cortical atrophy and symptoms of Alzheimer’s and/or dementia. It hasn’t stopped her from singing, though, and she continues her efforts to bring joy to others.  She spoke by Zoom with a writer for Alzheimer’s TODAY about her life back home in Ohio and the projects she has planned.

 

How did your diagnosis come about?  Were you experiencing symptoms and decided to check them out?

For five or six or more years before it was little things. “I know this song. Why did I forget the words?” I made a joke out of it in shows. It kept building.

Have you/how have you adjusted to the diagnosis?

I moved to an independent senior residence. I had to get rid of so much. I didn’t want to let go. It was hard and frustrating to leave the place where I had been.

Now I am grateful for where I am. I live on the fifth floor with a great view. There’s a 90-year-old man here who plays the piano. A couple of times a year he’ll play, and I’ll sing. It’s been hard to adjust but I’m more comfortable now. At least knowing where I am as far as the sickness. I know many people are going through this, too. I want to write a book.

I read that you can no longer travel or perform in concerts. Can you sing and do you?

I sing a lot in my apartment to keep the pipes in order. The neighbors are very happy. I have large cards with all the words on them.

I’ve actually sung in many, many hospices. That’s always been a part of my heart. There was a grandmother in her last moments. I thought, “Oh, my God, what can I do to help her?” You could feel the sadness in everybody’s heart. The kids said she liked country music, so I did a little ditty for her. I got to a certain point and we heard a soft “whoo, whoo, whoo” sound. The beauty of that. The children and family were crying tears of joy. A simple thing like that is wonderful. I understand people even more now.   

I sang in a women’s prison. A woman sent me a letter to say I changed her life. For that moment – they are stuck in coops over there – they light up like candles.

What is your biggest challenge?

Not knowing exactly what is in the future. I try to see every day as a gift and keep moving on and trying to help other people.

Are you still writing children’s music?

I’m writing some. I had done that years ago and there’s stuff I haven’t dealt with in a while. I want to do that.

What else are you working on now?

Through the years I performed for charities. That kept me going. I miss doing that. I’d like to do more. I worked for the Muscular Dystrophy Association for three decades and HIV-AIDS and the American Music Therapy Association.

I’m talking to my music conductor, Jeff Harris. I want to record inspirational songs. I can’t wait to make a recording in the studio. I’ve been in the house so long. Maybe it will do some good.

You said you will be working to bring more attention to music therapy. How are you doing this?

When children are in a funk you just start music and they just lift up their souls. That’s what I’d like to bring them.

In 1972, on Christmas Eve – I’d done a concert the day before – I was asked to stay and go to a hospital. I thought, “That will be fun.” Kids were in cribs. The babies didn’t know anything about me but the parents needed that so badly. They came and hugged me. Something as innocent as that can change somebody for even a moment.

I want to become helpful any way I can. That’s what I’m looking forward to, that kind of thing. I may not be able to do this or that, but I know how to deal with this the best I can, when I can make someone else happy.

You said you slowly realized that your inner life has not changed, that Alzheimer’s/dementia is not going to stop you from living your life.  What does this mean for you now? What do you mean by “inner life”?

What we keep inside, above the chest. Your soul. I keep things with me. I try to remember things that were very important to me and I’m always trying to fix somebody else in their dilemma. I know all that’s still inside me.

My interview with Maureen McGovern appears in the March cover story for Alzheimer’s TODAY magazine.

 

Jessica Chastain is spectacular in 'A Doll's House'

      If you want to test the power of a well-written play, strip away practically everything except the words.  That's what director Jamie Lloyd has done with A Doll's House at the Hudson Theatre.  The result: the play was as compelling for me as when I first read it in college.  That's because Lloyd has focused on the most important theatrical element, the players.  Jessica Chastain as Nora heads the exceptional cast for this Broadway revival of Ibsen's 1879 classic story of a woman's journey to self-realization.  

     From the moment you enter the theatre, the austerity is apparent.  Scenic designer Sutra Gilmour’s stage is bare except for a few light wood straight chairs.  Moody, pulsing music by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto creates an air of anticipation.  About 15 minutes before the start of the show Chastain walks out to sit as a turntable slowly revolves her around the stage.  Her expression is pondering, looking off into the distance.  Her long copper-colored hair is pulled back and her clothes are contemporary, a long black dress with three-quarter length sleeves (costume design by Gilmour and Enver Chakartash).  She will rarely leave that chair for the entire nearly two-hour intermission-less show, except most dramatically when her fevered dance for her husband, which she has been doing seated, pitches her to the floor. 

     The next indication that this production will be different is the opening conversation between the two main characters, Nora, the sheltered Norwegian wife, and her doting and controlling husband, Torvald (Arian Moayed).  Unlike in traditional interpretations in which Torvald is condescending and Nora childish, these two converse more like equal partners, parents of three small children who are sharing the joy of Torvald’s promotion at the bank and their relief from financial strain.  Chastain’s Nora is happy and confident, and more mature than how she is usually portrayed.  They could be a couple from today rather than the late 19th century.  Playwright Amy Herzog wrote this modernized adaptation.  As the evening progresses, though, the two will revert to the characters with whom we are more familiar, 

     Convention is turned on its head even more in further interactions, most notably when Nora is threatened with exposure by Krogstad (Okieriete Onaodowan, in photo), an underhanded bank employee Torvald is on the verge of firing.  He makes it clear he will expose the crime Nora committed to get money to pay for medical treatment for Torvald if she does not persuade Torvald to keep him on. 

     Rather than confront each other face to face, Lloyd has them seated with their backs to each other.  Emotional expression is kept low-key with little variation, as it is throughout the show.  The actors’ words are crystal clear, spoken out to open space rather than each other.  With no sets, costumes, props or physical encounters, the dialogue rules.  It was like a radio play in which we are forced to listen carefully because that’s all we have.  I was involved the entire time.

     The unconventionality is in place right up to the final scene.  With no door to close firmly behind her, Nora exits through a panel that opens in the back wall, heading into the world beyond, leaving her family behind.

     When classics are drastically reinterpreted like this I often feel that someone encountering them for the first time won’t be getting a true sense of the play but I didn’t feel that way this time.  We don’t need the simple Norwegian living room and Victorian costumes.  We’ve got the story, powerfully intact.

Neil Diamond is the subject of Broadway's latest jukebox musical

 

     Usually the weakest element in a jukebox musical is the book.  While not great, Anthony McCarten’s book for A Beautiful Noise is serviceable, especially in the first act.  The weakest element is Steven Hoggett’s choreography (more about that later).  Unfortunately for this latest offering in the genre, which features the music of Neil Diamond, the one part of any show that absolutely must be strong, the lead character, misses the mark.  Will Swenson, Broadway veteran that he is, never fully embodies the superstar he is portraying at the Broadhurst Theatre.   

     This is most obvious in the second act when the songwriter from Flatbush, Brooklyn, has become a megastar, filling stadiums and arenas as the biggest box office draw in the world, knocking Elvis out of that distinction.  Swenson’s voice has the intonation and strength of Diamond’s but he lacks the magnetism of performance that filled those venues for decades.  I was always aware he was an actor playing a part rather than becoming the star the way Myles Frost transforms into Michael Jackson in MJ.

     Maybe this is because Frost grew up emulating Jackson and spent years perfecting Jackson’s moves and voice.  Swenson also grew up with an awareness of the pop star he is portraying, but it was his father who love Diamond.  “My dad liked Neil so much that there was a picture of him hanging up in our garage,” he said in an interview with Playbill.  “He was always playing Neil on a loop; he never took that tape out of his car.”

     But while Diamond’s infectious tunes were the soundtrack of Swenson’s childhood, the singer was his father’s idol, not his.  It was dad music.  He knows the songs but doesn’t have the presence.

     The show opens with an aged and reluctant Diamond (Mark Jacoby) sitting stubbornly quiet in the office of the psychologist (Linda Powell) his third wife, Katie (unseen), and children nudged him to meet with for his depression, which we learn as the story unfolds was something he lived with throughout his life.  The nameless therapist knows he’s famous but seems to have never heard of him, which is hard to believe.  If she was expecting a new patient who was famous don't you think she would have Googled him to get to know a bit about him?  In an effort to draw him out she buys a book of his lyrics and is excited that she knows one of the songs —he wrote nearly 100.  Maybe that was supposed to be funny but I thought it was silly.  But her approach works as Diamond opens up about what those songs meant to him.

     “When I hit that first cord, the clouds lift.”

     I like the device McCarten uses to launch the heart of the story, which is certainly an interesting one.  He has the therapist pick one song each session to talk about.  It’s a good way to bring the songs into the show and unpack Diamond’s past.  Unfortunately director Michael Mayer brings on a herd of young dancers to accompany each song.  Clad in colorful play clothes that give a suggestion of the 1960s (costumes by Emilio Sosa), they bop around the stage like a bunch of hyperactive amebas, with every dance number looking the same.  They are annoying. 

     We learn that Diamond, this man who could sell out stadiums, set out to be a songwriter rather than a performer.  He sold his first song at 15 and his first hit, “I’m a Believer,” was a chart topper for the Monkees. 

     It is Ellie Greenwich (Bri Sudia), a powerful producer in the Brill Building, who discovers what would be Diamond’s ultimate path.  She had been assigning his songs — “The Boat That I Row,” “Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow), “Red, Red, Wine” —to singers until one day Diamond interrupts one young man, played by Max Sangerman, as he sings “Kentucky Woman.”  Diamond suggests a different interpretation.  Greenwich realizes that he is the one who should be singing his songs and coaxes him into an appearance at the Village’s Bitter End cafe.  He’s frightened at first but warms up as he sings “Solitary Man,” magnetizing the audience.  The elder Diamond tells his therapist, “It was the first time I ever really felt alive.” He returns until the inevitable record contracts and large engagements follow.

     In these Act One scenes Swenson as the insecure Diamond is believable.  It’s in Act Two with Diamond clad in sequined suits singing to thousands that he loses the character.  

     All of this is to say that while the show could have been better I still enjoyed it.  I never owned any of Diamond’s records but I’ve listened to his songs on the radio since I was in elementary school.  It’s been years now, if not decades, since I heard them because I listen almost exclusively to jazz and country/folk/Americana on WAER from Syracuse University.  I enjoyed reconnecting with “America,””Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show,” “Cherry, Cherry,” “Cracklin’ Rosie” “Forever in Blue Jeans,” “Holly Holy,” “I Am. . .I Said” and “Shilo,” among others.  

     Not to be forgotten, of course, is “Sweet Caroline,” which lit up the audience as the Act One closer and had us on our feet clapping and singing along at the curtain call.  That was fun.  

     So it goes for another jukebox musical on Broadway.  

All-Black cast energizes 'Death of a Salesman'

 

     I was unprepared for the emotional impact director Miranda Cromwell’s revival of Death of a Salesman would have on me.  I haven't felt so moved since the first time I saw this Arthur Miller classic when I was 17 and went into it cold.

     Willy's death shook me deeply then and it did again yesterday thanks to Wendell Pierce’s powerful, fully human performance.  But I grieved for another character as well this time, Linda, Willy's devoted wife.  As portrayed by Sharon D. Clarke this Linda is a woman of our time, a feminist Linda who isn’t diminished by Willy's temper and insults.  

     Linda has always come off to me as a servile, 1950s TV wife with a “Yes, dear” attitude who cowered under Willy's verbal abuse.  When Willy yells at Clarke’s Linda to be quiet she stops talking but her gestures and expressions say plenty.  She’s no doormat.  She’s Willy’s equal and when she tells her sons she loves him I had no doubt.  In the past I’ve thought she was just kidding herself.

     This revival, at the Hudson Theatre, is the first time the 1949 play has been done on Broadway with an all-Black cast.  Broadway lags way behind Baltimore’s Center Stage in that regard.  The 1972 production I saw was the first time Salesman had been done by an all-Black professional cast in this country.  Miller came to the opening.  In a program note he wrote: “I have felt for many years that particularly with this play, which has been so well received in so many countries and cultures, that the black actor would have an opportunity, if that is needed anymore, to demonstrate all his common humanity and his talent.”  Obviously it was still needed because it took 50 years for it to happen on Broadway. 

     I’ve seen the play at least three other times — in 1983 at Syracuse Stage and the Broadway revivals in 1999 and 2012, with all white casts, of course, and I’ve read it I don’t know how many times through my three degrees in English.  Because of that I was reluctant to see it again.  I thought its power to move me was long gone and I went only as a dutiful Drama Desk voter.  I’m glad I did.  By the end, the graveside scene was so painful I was in tears.  Linda said she couldn’t cry but couldn’t not.  

     Adding to the emotion of the scene was a gospel recording that began to play quietly and was picked up by Linda singing “When We Meet Again When the Trumpets Sound.”  What a gut punch.  

     This gave a familiar classic a new take.  Clarke’s performance and Cromwell’s direction made the play a story of a husband and wife, a marriage, instead of the father/son story I had always been left with.

     Which leads me to the sons, Biff (Khris Davis) and Happy (McKinley Belcher III).  I’ve never had much sympathy for either of them except when I saw Kevin Anderson’s portrayal in the 1999 Broadway revival.  I did care about his Biff.  With these two I wanted to bash their heads together. 

     Andre De Shields portrays Ben, Willy’s older brother, who proudly tells Willy,  “William, when I walked into the jungle, I was 17.  When I walked out I was 21.  And, by God, I was rich!”  He is authoritative, almost kingly, pumped up with his own self-importance, making it easy to understand how he makes Willy feel he can’t measure up.  He’s also a bit scary when he’s the ghost of himself who plays out in Willy’s troubled mind.

     Scenic designer Anna Fleischle leaves the stage largely bare, which is effective in focusing on the drama of the play.  Furniture and window frames that are suspended from the ceiling go up and down as needed. Jen Schriever’s lighting design is dark and shadowy, in keeping with the mood.  

     This production was originally directed by Marianne Elliott and Miranda Cromwell at the Young Vic Theatre in London, and subsequently at the Piccadilly Theatre in London in 2019.    This Broadway production proves that attention must still be paid to Willy Loman and Miller’s enduring play. 

Hoagy Carmichael's Stardust Road is sublime

 

     By the time I walked out of Hoagy Carmichael’s Stardust Road at the Theatre at St. Jeans my spirits had soared to the moon.  This new revue, directed by Susan H. Schulman, is told entirely through Carmichael’s enchanting songs, with hardly a word of dialogue.  Spoken words aren’t needed.  The story is evocatively told through the songs and dances.  Every note and every step is perfection.

     The 90-minute show, produced by The York Theatre Company, was conceived by Schulman, Michael Lichtefeld and Lawrence Yurman and developed with the songwriter’s son, Hoagy Bix Carmichael, who was sitting in front of me the night I went.  

     The seven-member cast is the most talented you could find anywhere.  Together and individually they take us on a journey through four decades in America — the early years of ragtime, jazz and the blues, the romance of New York in the 30s, the years of uncertainty during World War II and the post-war Golden Age of Hollywood.  Lichtefeld’s choreography reflects each period and those actors really own that stage when they dance, just as they do when they sing.

     Alex Allison’s costumes are on the mark, and downright exquisite for the women’s gowns.  Nothing on Broadway could beat them, or anything else about this show.  The York Theatre has outdone itself with this one.

     Yurman provides music supervision and arrangements for the wonderful six-man onstage orchestra.  You will be transported back to a time when the music was revered and not amplified to the point of distortion.  James Morgan and Vincent Gunn have created a set consisting of small round tables, chairs and a bar that transform easily from a neighborhood hangout, to a military canteen and finally a lavish Hollywood nightclub thanks to Jason Kantrowitz’s lighting and a few simple touches.  The scenes change without your even noticing but then, there you are, in a whole new atmosphere and setting. 

     I was wowed by the Fred and Ginger-style ballroom dancing and the full cast numbers, but also touched by simpler scenes, such as the one in the USO Canteen where three lonely servicemen sing of home.  Markcus Blair longs for “Memphis in June.”  For Cory Lingner, it’s “Can’t Get Indiana Off My Mind” and Dion Simmons Grier gives us a soulful “Georgia on My Mind.” 

     A nice contrast is a scene in the Club Heart and Soul in Hollywood.  Danielle Herbert is the height of sophistication in a red gown and glittery jewels as she sings “How Little We Know.”  It could have been a scene in a big studio movie of the era. 

     In that same setting Mike Schwitter gives us a moving “I Get Along Without Very Well” and Sara Esty brings to life the ever-popular “Skylark,” as does Kayla Jenerson for “Stardust.” 

     All together close to 50 songs are sung and danced.  And if you love tap, which I do, Lingner (in photo) is a marvel.  

     The show runs through the matinee on Dec. 31.  It might be the best way to spend New Year’s Eve in all of New York.  It gets my vote.

Jim Parsons is A Man of No Importance

 

     By the end of A Man of No Importance, Alfie Byrne has been transformed, but it’s not by the theatricals he has devotedly directed in his Dublin church hall.  It is, rather, by opening himself to reality that Alfie is changed. 

     Jim Parsons as Alfie and Mare Winningham as his older, unmarried sister, Lily, head an excellent cast of 13, some of whom also play musical instruments, in director John Doyle’s revival of the 2002 musical, which I saw and loved at the Mitzi Newhouse Theatre.  The theatrical gifts of Terrance McNally (book), Stephen Flaherty (music) and Lynn Ahrens (lyrics), who collaborated so beautifully on the 1998 Broadway musical version of Ragtime, are the holy trinity behind this musical, which is based on a 1994 movie of the same name starring Albert Finney.  It’s running at CSC through Dec. 4. 

     Set in 1964, A Man of No Importance tells the story of Alfie, a middle-aged bus conductor and closeted homosexual who is devoted to Oscar Wilde.  He lives a quiet life with Lily, getting his great pleasure directing an amateur theatre group, the St. Imelda Players.  His controlled life is shaken, however, after he gets into trouble with church authorities when he plans to stage Wilde’s risqué play Salome, complete with the seductive dance of the seven veils.

     Alfie’s love for Wilde isn’t limited to the plays he directs.  He also reads Wilde’s poetry to his passengers, brightening their dreary, often rainy, mornings.  In the opening number, “A Man of No Importance,” they sing of the “poetry and art in the air” as, thanks to Alfie, “the bus becomes something more than a bus” and “a day is something more than a day.”  A.J. Shively, his co-worker, Robbie, does a nice job as the bus driver with whom Alfie is secretly in love.

     Doyle, who is also the scenic designer, creates this world using  only wooden folding chairs, which are then turned around to circle a table in the back to create the rehearsal hall.  The original production also had a simple setting, which is perfect for the tenderness of this show.  I felt I was on the bus or with the St. Imelda’s Players and their let’s-put-on-a-play enthusiasm.  The humor of the lyrics and the uplifting lilt in the music add to the fun.

     Church members are also lifted out of their world in what Alfie calls “losing yourself in someone else.”  The butcher, Mr. Carney (Thom Sesma), can’t wait to get back onstage, hoping to reprise his role as Algernon in The Importance of Being Earnest.  Other church hall thespians join him in “Going Up,” a number in which they envision themselves as acclaimed performers. 

     Carney is disappointed to learn the group will be doing a play he’s never heard of, Salome, but is appeased when he leans one of the characters is John the Baptiser, whom he considers “the first Roman Catholic priest, practically.”

     The late Charles Keating played this role in the original with a nice dash of camp, soap star that he was.  He played the villainous Carl Hutchins on “Another World” for many years.  Sesma’s approach is more straightforward.  He has a rich singing voice, which I don’t remember from Keating, but I was a huge fan of Keating and “Another World” so I loved every minute of his interpretation.  The original production also featured Roger Rees as Alfie and Faith Prince as Lily.

     Carney isn’t appeased for long.  After reading the play he is appalled and calls a special Sodality meeting, resulting in its cancellation.  Even before this, though, Alfie has been questioning his life.  In “Man in the Mirror,” he wonders “Why should someone care for you when you care so little for yourself?” and he sees “the dead eyes of a man who doesn’t know who he is.”  He conjures up Wilde (Sesma) for a personal conversation, asking him, “Who is this man with the thickening body riding his bus till his dying days?” 

     His awakening causes him to advise his play’s Salome (Shereen Ahmed), who is pregnant by a man who doesn’t love her, not to hold back, singing, “You just have to love who you love.”

     But when Alfie decides to follow this advice, encouraged by Wilde who tells him, “the only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it,” he makes an advance on a young man and gets beaten up.  Only then does he begin to find a life that balances art and reality.

     In the closing song, “Welcome to the World,” Alfie sings of having watched the world roll past for too long.  “Life is clearly something that I can’t rehearse. . .  I am in the world and that should be enough and that’s all I have to say.”  And that’s all he needs to say.  He doesn’t have to be a man of importance.  He’s a man who knows who he is, and that, indeed, is enough.