BWW Reviews: PARADE, Southwark Playhouse, August 22 2011

I confess to two preconceptions that a reviewer really shouldn't hold: that the line "based on a true story" is a licence to cook drama into melodrama; and that amplifying singing should only be done if absolutely necessary. Parade (at the Southwark Playhouse until 17 September) just, at times only just, shows the folly of holding such preconceptions, but is rescued by two dazzling central performances.

Set in Georgia in 1913, when Civil War veterans still limped through the dusty streets and demagoguery was very much the coin of politicians keen to tap into the electorate's strong identity with the State, the South and a, shall we say, traditional social hierarchy, Jason Robert Brown and Alfred Uhry's musical is based on the events surrounding the murder of 13 year-old Mary Phagan and subsequent trial of Leo Frank. Using the natural vault of the space (the theatre is under the railway arches of London Bridge station) director Thom Sutherland captures physically the psychological prison that Leo felt held him, an educated Brooklyn Jew in a redneck town. While the music turns up the emotional charge notch by notch, every Southern stereotype turns up to plunge Leo further and further into the abyss.

As he falls, he also falls in love with a wife he had previously taken for granted, married more to his work than to his Southern belle. And this relationship, beautifully acted and impressively sung (though please, no mics taped to foreheads in an traverse space where the audience are no more than three rows from the actors) by Alastair Brookshaw and Laura Pitt-Pulford gives an emotional depth to what is pretty much a potboiler plot. They get fine support from a cast blessed with fine voices (especially Terry Doe) who do their best with some cookie cutter roles.

Having said all that, the audience, having been as manipulated as the jury in Leo's trial, loved it with tears and ovations at the end and, if musical theatre isn't about using singing and acting to produce an emotional response, then what is it about? 

 

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