Broadway review “Paradise Square”: the story sidesteps the musical’s grand reach

paradise square Quite inaccessible. The musical, about the horrifying New York Draft Rebellion of 1863, goes back in time and tells the present. He approaches different cultures to talk to us about assimilation and appropriation. It reaches styles of music and dance to celebrate diversity and commonality. It achieves both epic realism and mythical nostalgia. And at some point you reach a tipping point when all of these results expire.

The musical, which opens today at the Ethel Barrymore Theater, is so big that it dates back to the works of Cameron Macintosh in the 1980s and his Broadway descendants in the 1990s. record time AND Kiss of the spider woman In the latter courtesy of Gart Drabinski, the producer is looking to go back paradise square After some economic difficulties that led him to imprisonment in Canada; He was released in 2013 after 17 months in prison.

Directed by the great Moise Kaufman, paradise square Fascinating at first, a modern New York-based film project takes the place of a huge 19th-century multi-tiered tavern and ballroom, from which the musical takes its name.

Our past guide is salon owner Nelly O’Brien (Joaquina Calucango, last seen on Broadway slave game). A black Irish white woman named Willie O’Brien (Matt Bogart) slowly runs an institution that seems to fit her name and offers a kind of paradise where black and Irish neighbors have five tough spots. In the neighborhood you can find friendships and entertainment with a seemingly small invasion of racism dividing the country elsewhere. In fact, Nellie and Willie’s marriage is just one of two racially mixed relationships here: Willis White is an Irish Catholic and Annie (Chilina Kennedy) is married to black Protestant Reverend Samuel Jacob Lewis (Nathanael Stampley).

If this racial harmony seems a bit on the side of Eden, or at least historical for our modern understanding of the time, let’s take part in the golden lily because the very name of the tavern (and the musical) ties the two companies together. . The field is as metaphorical as it is historical. Characters often utter loud, embarrassing, hard-to-expose phrases that swing between fairy tales and bad old lyrics: “A parlor in Paradise Square owned by Nelly Freeman,” says corrupt and hated political leader Frederick Tigens (John Dossett). . Go on stage. A bag with the $ sign is enough for him to complete the ascent of his Monopoly Man, this Simon Legre does not hide his desire to close the Plaza del Paraíso without a mustache. “He has created a refuge for social depravity and political prosperity,” he said. “He has never given so many Irish people against us. My strategy is planted here, gentlemen. “

If we don’t fully understand his misdeeds, Nelly greets Tigens like this: “The Uptown party leader who is obsessed with five points. “You know who you are.”

If you start playing the melodrama of an old silent movie here, buckle up. Tigens has imposed some fines on the tavern, which he knows will reduce business. Tavern Solution: Organize a show. More specifically, the Obsolete Irish Dance Competition, where Irish and black communities get a chance to show off their stuff. The proceeds will save the hall, leaving enough to pay the winning dancer $ 300, the exact amount needed to get out of the recently declared and highly unpopular Civil War project. (A project that, without branches, excludes blacks.)

The competition features two new parlor habits: Owen Duane (AJ Shivel), Anne and Will’s grandson from Ireland, and a young man named Henry from Washington who escaped slavery in the south. Underground. With the help of the Reverend and Nell, neither of whom know the full story of the fugitive, young Washington quickly finds himself drawn to a family in heaven, including his friendship with rival dancer Owen.

Finally, there is another new character who will have a huge impact on life in heaven: the mysterious drunken pianist / composer who goes by the name of Milton Moore (Jacob Fischel) and has the amazing ability to play Stephen Foster. Songs associated with the romantic glorification of plantation life are highly undesirable in a slow-moving environment.

So this is the installation. There is a faint calm in this place where everyone knows your name, or thinks they know it, and a skeleton or two found will be enough to score a five-point match.

But before we get there, we’ll have lots of music and dancing, courtesy of many music chefs. UNDERGROUNDUsed by Jason Holland (Beautiful: Carole King Musical), and poems by Nathan Tysen (amelia) and roast pasta (monsoon wedding) delivers much of the anthem and a fairly bombastic performance, with enough Celtic and bluesy tones to set the songs apart from traditional Broadway shows. additional The music of Larry Kirwan, lead singer of the Irish punk band Black 47, features the melodies of Stephen Foster, who was originally founded. paradise square During its development.

Indeed, some have openly stated that they distance themselves from Foster’s music. paradise square Without a not a little anachronistic debate on cultural appropriation, arguments that would be far more compelling if the musical were self-reflective enough to consider its many artistic elevations. It waits in vain for any conscientious discussion that obstructs the distinction between embezzlement and artistic expansion of cross-pollination. Such shades never come. It is easier to portray a man as an ignorant art thief whose musical success sets a model for cultural plunder for centuries to come.

In fact, paradise squareWith a book by Christina Anderson (Good products, black babyCraig Lucas (light in the square) And Kirwan, excellent writers, have a sad, even destructive tendency to blame the villains for their cartoons rather than the vague depths of their benevolent ordinary people. Mr. Monopoly unilaterally encourages white immigrants to rebel against the draft, first convincing them that they are being asked to fight in the war of the rich – Trump has nothing to do with Frederick’s fake populism – and only to change later. Rebels outraged against their black neighbors. You don’t have to close your eyes too much – or justify both sides of the aisle – to see what paradise square He hopes to do so here: to support his commitment to a pre-corruption racial “paradise” by explaining the murder of a white Irish mafia against black New Yorkers by suggesting that even good guys like Owen simply hugged Mr. Money. Machiavellian stock market nonsense.

paradise square It comes very close to opening from one’s own impulses – from the theatrically thwarted culmination of a brief, shocking bloodless riot – to one of the greatest moments of the Kalukango star’s evening glory: a powerful anthem of anger and disobedience called “Let It Burn E ride. that the human soul can survive the destruction of destructive structures. As a combat tactic, “Let It Burn” is quite short, but as a vocal exercise for an incredible singer, this number is a treasure (and perhaps Kalukango received a nomination for Tony Award that otherwise would have eluded him).

Other performers also have signature moments, most notably Shivel and DuPont, as friendly if not increasingly desperate dance rivals. Choreographer Bill T. Jones advocates the traditional Irish step dance for Shivel, while for Dupont he tilts heavily like an African juba, with his rhythmic beats and strokes in the style of the Nicholas brothers. Historic authenticity has nothing to do with this: Jones also adds his own avant-garde ballet brand into the mix, a mix that can be exciting at times and simply confuse others.

This clash of styles and brands can be seen elsewhere: the pure lesbian couple are nowhere to be found, their characters unexplored and used only as a modern backbone. More damaging is Kaufman’s apparent indication to actress Chilina Kennedy to play the hilarious and often Irish Annie on stage in a style so raucous and largely comical that the character has little to do with O’Brien. paradise square compared to the Oakley’s Annie, get your gun. If Broadway puts on a revival of this musical soon, you shouldn’t be looking for your roots anymore.