Dramatic, funny "Parade' on route to local success
By Sandra C. Dillard
Denver Post Theater Critic
Sept. 14, 2000 - Note to potential
"Parade" patrons: Don't be put off by
the forbidding phrase, "a musical about
a lynching." This rich, tuneful, moving,
dramatic and often very funny musical
is much, much more than that.
True, the show written by Alfred Uhry
and directed by Hal Prince was inspired
by the 1915 lynching of Leo Frank, the
Jewish supervisor of a pencil factory in
Atlanta, who in 1913 was tried and
convicted of the murder of one of his
employees, 13-yearold Mary Phagan.
But "Parade" is a tale as American as
"Ragtime," and boasts a superb score,
an involving story, and fabulous
performances. Despite the
stark-branched tree that looms over
the stage and seems to grow as the
action progresses, the lynching scene
is just a tiny part of the whole.
Far more important is the story of Leo
and Lucille Frank, whose arranged
marriage grows in to a genuine lasting,
passionate love as they begin to truly
know one another after Leo's imprisonment.
Leo is wonderfully played by David Pittu, who first appears as a
cold, anal-retentive man in glinting spectacles and headto-toe
black, who hates Atlanta and longs to return to Brooklyn. To Leo
(who sings "How Can I Call This Place Home''), the South is a
foreign country where, as he notes, he doesn't fit in; he doesn't
swear or drawl, and even the Jews "are not like Jews." Pittu has
a commanding vocal style, and outdoes himself as an actor in a
first-act sequence where in a red-lit, dreamlike sequence he
energetically transforms himself into the lewd, lascivious man
described by the lying factory girls who have been coached in
their false testimony.
Andrea Burns, who is blessed with a soaring, operatic voice, is
warmly winning as Lucille, who grows from a pampered housewife,
dismissed and disregarded by her husband, to an admirably strong
woman, fighting on her husband's behalf. No longer a mousy
Southern flower, she thinks nothing of approaching the Georgia
governor, or cleverly diverting a prison guard.
"Parade," also is enriched by exceptional supporting work. Randy
Redd almost stops the show with his bluesy, boozy turn ( "Big
News'') as a frustrated young reporter longing to escape trivial
assignments and finally get a big, career-making story. In his
reporter role, Redd also serves admirably as "Parade's" narrator.
Also making a big impact is Keith Byron Kirk as the cocky, lying,
black ex-convict, Jim Conley. Kirk is mesmerizing both in a key
courtroom scene and in a dramatically orange-lit chain-gang
segment where he speaks boldly to the governor while at the
same time leading the hard-working chaingang's call and response
( "Blues: Feel the Rain Fall.'')
Peter Samuel is commanding as the ambitious prosecutor, Hugh
Dorsey, while John Leslie Wolfe gliding silently in undertaker black
and popping up almost unexpectedly, is chilling as the fanatic,
racist newspaper publisher, Tom Watson.
Prince moves his large cast about with fluid ease. The
Confederate Memorial Day parade scenes -- marked by a
one-legged white-haired Civil War veteran waving from a float,
huge Confederate flags, brass instruments and a twirling baton --
are particularly effective, as are the courtroom scenes with an
imaginative, paper cut-out jury.
There were a few opening-night problems, notably involving
sound, but ultimately "Parade" is a thoroughly satisfying theatrical
experience.
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