‘Parade’ Broadway Review: Ben Platt and Micaela Diamond lead an extraordinary march through history

Neo-Nazis are generally a loud bunch and it takes some extraordinary and confident artwork to drown out their loud, ugly noise. marchopening tonight on Broadway at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theater is this work of art.

With a fortuitous tagline – “It’s not over yet” – from one of the most powerful songs from a beautiful film score, the 1998 revival march comes exactly when it’s most needed, and offers an eloquent response to the rise in anti-Semitism made all too clear by the hate group protesting before the first preview of the show (they weren’t back).

With a cast as fine as it is large, led by Ben Platt and Micaela Diamond – two of Broadway’s finest singers of the moment – marchSet in 1913 Georgia, it boasts all the artistry and theatrical expertise to fulfill and surpass its noble intentions. march is as impressive as any Broadway musical revival in years.

Directed by Michael Arden march Platt and Diamond play Leo and Lucille Frank, the real-life Jewish couple whose lives are destroyed by Leo’s arrest and fabricated conviction for the rape and murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan. After his death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, the case was re-evaluated and continues to this day – even car magnate and outright anti-Semite Henry Ford questioned the verdict – Frank was dragged from his prison cell by a lynch mob and hung to a tree branch .

Not exactly the usual stuff of a Broadway musical, is it? Nevertheless, writer Alfred Uhry and composer Jason Robert Brown delivered a musical (co-conceived and originally directed by Harold Prince) that was both engaging and engrossing, balancing the broader scope of a history lesson with a marriage story full of complexity. convincing. and heartbreaking in its conclusion.

But even with lead made from solid starting material, all production is over march suffers from a number of inherent obstacles. Move too slowly and the story becomes clumsy. Also, casting the wrong actors in supporting roles (perhaps especially supporting roles) unbalances the delicate power dynamics. Fewer than great singers, and there is a score that can rise.

Arden, Platt and Diamond ensure that this revival sails over those landmines. Along with a 33-strong cast that includes outstanding personalities such as, to choose a few, Alex Joseph Grayson (as the lying, twisted ex-con), Jay Armstrong Johnson (as the ruthless reporter) and Danielle Lee Greaves ( as the servant). bullied into treason the Franks) – it marchwhich started as encores! Presented at the on-a-roll New York City Center (founder of Broadway’s most recent In the forest), is quite possibly as good an interpretation of Uhry-Brown’s work as most of us will ever see.

Performed on a stage designed by Dane Laffrey, built around a raised rectangular platform in the center of the stage reminiscent of witness stands, boxing rings, wooden gallows and old fashioned bandstands. march sneak past as the action moves from house to pencil factory, chain gangs along the way to the governor’s mansion, each change of location heralded by unsettling, often ominous, historical photographs projected on a back wall. Characters are introduced similarly, with black and white faces, reminding us that the people we see singing and dancing once really and truly lived on this earth.

Most listeners will likely be familiar with the broad historical outline of the story, which begins in 1913 when Leo Frank, a Brooklyn-raised Jew transferred to Marietta, Georgia to work in a pencil factory, of the gruesome murder of teenagers became Maria. The girl, a 13-year-old assembly line worker, was found dead in the factory basement after visiting Frank’s office to collect her paycheck.

Uhry’s book, without being too obvious, introduces us to Leo and his wife Lucille hours before the crime, their argument about his work on Confederate Memorial Day, and the festive parade that highlights the fundamental differences in their worldview as Jews. reflect. born and raised on either side of the Mason-Dixon line.

“Confederate Memorial Day is idiotic,” he tells her. “Why would anyone want to celebrate the loss of a war?” Considering we just watched a brief musical opening credits flashback of a young Confederate soldier saying goodbye to his hometown girl – the Stephen Foster-esque song “The Old Red Hills of Home,” well sung by Charlie Webb , just one of many ensemble players for a moment to shine — we know right away that Leo’s over-the-top opinions won’t do him any good.

Young Mary (Erin Rose Doyle) is also introduced early, in her new holiday picnic dress and clutching a white helium-filled balloon, as she exchanges mildly flirtatious talk with a dorky local boy (Jake Pedersen) before a movie date that we ken will never happen. Mary’s death is imminent, indicated onstage by this balloon being released and lifted (one of the production’s few gross-out gags, also evidenced by Platt’s prisoner Leo remaining onstage during the intermission ).

After Leo’s inevitable, tragic and furious end, march introduces us to a wide and varied cast of characters, including a corrupt prosecutor, Hugh Dorsey (Paul Alexander Nolan, as exemplary here as in playing slaves), a debt-ridden governor (Sean Allan Krill, even stronger than him Jagged little pill), a racist judge (Howard McGillin), an anti-Semitic newspaper editor (Manoel Felciano) and the black servants (Douglas Lyons, Courtnee Carter), who can only stare in anger and dejection at the attention given to the hanging of a white person as “in every tree swings a black man”.

This line is taken from Act II’s opening track, “Rumblin’ and a Rollin’,” just one of the many beautifully performed songs on this revival, from the heady bitter “That’s What He Said” to the deceptively sweet “Factory Girls.” performed by a trio played by Mary’s groin friends.

But make no mistake march belongs to Leo and Lucille. For his part, Platt has no qualms about reminding us why he has become one of Broadway’s most popular performers. His vocals here are astonishing, rising high and falling low in a remarkably flexible, pitch-correct and bell-shaped delivery, modulating to every emotional nuance of a score beyond vaudeville hits, pop ballads and musical theater showstoppers. While Platt’s on-screen performances have been a bit of a hit so far, and his Lion may be taking a bit more of the wear and tear that comes with two years in a Georgia prison, his stage presence, acting and singing skills show for him matter close to the best Broadway stars of his generation.

Diamant matches Platt step for step and note for note, a delightfully unexpected performance for a relative newcomer who made her Broadway debut as one of the Chers in the largely forgettable 2018 jukebox musical The Cher Show. Platt-Diamond’s duets like “Leo At Work/What Am I Waiting For?”, “All the Wasted Time” and especially “This Is Not Over Yet” are stunning, their vocals blending together in a way that only hints at become , while they are excellent solo numbers (Platt’s “Leo’s Statement: It’s Hard to Speak My Heart”, Diamond’s “You Don’t Know This Man”).

Director Arden and choreographers Lauren Yalango-Grant and Christopher Cree Grant don’t skimp on the big ensemble numbers either, arriving at a rousing (and menacing) “Where will you stand when the flood comes?”

Sure, we know where that crowd will be in the Tide, but that knowledge doesn’t soften the blow since Platt’s Leo was clad only in the nightgown he was wearing when he was kidnapped (custom designer Susan Hilferty’s work is consistently from the top shelves ), drop down. his death in a bit of theatrics, not quite as flashy as a similar scene in last year’s film executionerstill grabbing his punch.

In a brief coda that jumps to the present, the actors who played this long-dead Confederate soldier and his mistress take the stage in modern dress as a young couple happily picnicking where a plaque marks the site of Frank’s lynching . It’s a deliberately ambiguous scene, maybe hopeful, maybe not. A projection reminds us that Frank’s case, which was reopened in 2019, remains officially unsolved.

Title: march
Location: The Bernard B. Jacobs Theater on Broadway
Director: Michael Arde
A book: Alfred Ury
Music: Jason Robert Brown
Form: Ben Platt, Micaela Diamond, Alex Joseph Grayson, Sean Allan Krill, Howard McGillin, Paul Alexander Nolan, Jay Armstrong Johnson, Kelli Barrett, Courtnee Carter, Eddie Cooper, Erin Rose Doyle, Tony Award nominee Manoel Felciano, Danielle Lee Greaves, Douglas Lyons , Jake Pedersen, Florrie Bagel, Stacie Bono, Max Chernin, Emily Rose DeMartino, Christopher Gurr, Beth Kirkpatrick, Ashlyn Maddox, Sophia Manicone, William Michals, Jackson Teeley, Charlie Webb.

Time: 2 hours 30 minutes (including break)