‘PARADE’: Micaela Diamond & Ben Platt. Photo: Joan Marcus.

PARADE
Book by Alfred Uhry
Music & lyrics by Jason Robert Brown
Conceived by Harold Prince
Directed by Michael Arden
Through August 6, 2023
Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre
242 West 45^th Street
(212-239-6200), https://paradebroadway.com/

By David NouNou

A lot has happened since Parade originally opened in 1998 at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre. In its original form, it was compelling theatre; now it is very difficult to sit through. Not that the subject matter has changed—it’s the times that have changed. If anything, Parade is more relevant today than it was back then. Watching antisemitism in full display now, bigotry, the state of Georgia currently in turmoil and making headlines about an injustice perpetrated by a former president—plus, the divisiveness that is splitting the country on so many different issues—there is a lot to process here.

The story is set in Georgia, the time is 1913-1915, and it is about the rape and murder of a 13-year-old girl, Mary Phagen (Erin Rose Doyle), and the subsequent arrest, trumped-up trial, unjust sentencing and lynching of a Jewish factory superintendent, Leo Frank (Ben Platt).

Leo Frank moved from Brooklyn to Atlanta to be with his Southern Georgian Jewish wife, Lucille (Micaela Diamond), whose uncle offered Leo a superintendent’s job and hopefully a better life to be able to raise a family. He is totally uncomfortable in this environment because he is Jewish and feels out of place. It is Memorial Day 1913: Mary Phagen (Miss Doyle), has come to the pencil factory on a Saturday for her weekly pay of $1.20. The next day she is found dead in the basement of the factory. The suspects at the time are the black janitor, Newt Lee (Eddie Cooper) and Leo Frank.  Prosecutor Hugh Dorsey (Paul Alexander Nolan) is coerced by Tom Watson (Manoel Felciano), a writer for The Jeffersonian, an extremist right-wing newspaper, and conspire to release Newt Lee reasoning “hanging another Negro ain’t enough this time. We gotta do better.”

Leo is sentenced to jail to eventually hang. His wife Lucille goes to Governor Slaton (Sean Allan Krill) to show the inconsistences of the trial, which Slaton reluctantly looks over, and ultimately finds enough evidence of conspired lying decides to transfer Leo to another jail, only to be hauled away at night by “rebels seeking revenge” and hanging him.

The book by Alfred Uhry is fascinating and intriguing, while the score by Jason Robert Brown is too lugubrious and unmemorable. For such an intense subject matter, the play could have used more book and less score to make the point of injustice more effective. You yearn for the scenes that have Leo and Lucille speaking frankly to each other or Lucille making her point to Governor Slaton. Originally directed by Harold Prince, director Michael Arden has taken a darker approach to the proceedings. It’s apropos for the times.

What mesmerized me most and made the evening more tolerable was Ben Platt. With the role of Leo Frank, he has finally shed his teenage persona of Evan Hansen, and taken the mantle of Broadway’s next leading man. He is so convincing as Leo that I could not see a sign of Evan. He is solid, as an actor and a singer and genuinely believes in his role.

Two other performances that leapt out were Micaela Diamond as Lucille Frank, her unrelenting pursuit to exonerate her husband and the love behind her motives are palpable. The other performance is from Sean Allan Krill as Georgia Governor Slaton, with his commanding voice and charming Southern gentility; he delivers genuine compassion in trying to resolve this heinous case. The rest of the cast is the usual stereotypes one would find in the South.

Parade is making a meaningful and lasting impression on this year’s theatrical season. It’s mirroring the times in which we live.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published March 22, 2023
Reviewed at March 21, 2023 press performance.

‘PARADE’: The cast. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘PARADE’: (left to right) William Michals, Jackson Teeley, Paul Alexander Nolan, Eddie Cooper & Max Chernin. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘PARADE’: Alex Joseph Grayson. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘PARADE’: Jay Armstrong Johnson & Jake Pedersen. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘PARADE’: Erin Rose Doyle & Jake Pedersen. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘PARADE’: Paul Alexander Nolan & Alex Joseph Grayson. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘PARADE’: Benn Platt. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘PARADE’: Micaela Diamond. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘PARADE’: Manoel Felciano. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘PARADE’: Stacie Bono & Sean Allan Krill. Photo: Joan Marcus.

The post ‘Parade’: Antisemitism & injustice in old South appeared first on StageZine.

‘JAGGED LITTLE PILL’: Elizabeth Stanley. Photo: Matthew Murphy

JAGGED LITTLE PILL
Lyrics by Alanis Morissette
Music by Alanis Morissette & Glen Ballard
Book by Diablo Cody
Directed by Diane Paulus
Broadhurst Theatre
235 West 44th St.
212-239-6200
https://jaggedlittlepill.com/

By Scott Harrah

Back in 1995, Alanis Morissette became a superstar with her seminal album Jagged Little Pill. Alanis, then just 20, defined emotionally raw music for a new generation of young women with the album’s iconic smash hits, from “You Oughta Know” and “Hand in My Pocket” to “Ironic.” Alanis’s music was highly personal, neurotic, hauntingly poetic and angry—all things we’d never heard before from a female artist so young and unapologetically feminist. Her music sounded so genuine because the pain she sang about came from such an organic place. Perhaps that’s why Jagged Little Pill on Broadway is so, well, hard to swallow. With a book by Oscar-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody (Juno), this jukebox musical only uses Alanis’s songs as the soundtrack for a story about a dysfunctional suburban family in Connecticut.  The story, while told with intelligence and a multi-talented cast of actors with good voices, is all too familiar and strained at times. Alanis’s classic songs are all here, performed with panache and with new added nuances, but they often seem out of place with such heavy-handed material.

Mary Jane Healy (Elizabeth Stanley)—cleverly named, of course, after the song “Mary Jane” on the Jagged Little Pill LP—is referred to by the nickname MJ. She pretends she and husband Steve (Sean Allan Krill), a workaholic attorney, have the perfect family. Their son Nick (Derek Klena) has just received word that he’ll be attending Harvard University when he finishes high school, but he hates the pressure to succeed this puts on him. The family also has an adopted African American daughter Frankie (Celia Rose Gooding). Of course, nothing is as idealistic as it seems. MJ was in a bad car accident and has since developed an addiction to opioid painkillers and has lost interest in sex with her husband. Steve, she discovers, has a secret addiction as well—to internet pornography. Daughter Frankie is hiding a shocking secret as well: She is bisexual and has been carrying on a lesbian fling with friend Jo (Lauren Patten). Trouble arises when Frankie meets new boy in town Phoenix (Antonio Cipriano) and falls for him.

Ms. Cody spins quite a tangled yarn here, covering enough controversial topics to fill a whole season of TV’s “Movie of the Week.” In two and a half hours (with an intermission), Jagged Little Pill covers topics ranging from rape and opioid addiction to bisexuality, marriage counseling, and so on. Despite its attempts to be “woke,” Jagged isn’t exactly original. The recent teen musical Dear Evan Hansen handled similar subject matter better because its narrative was more focused and less contrived.

The setting is 2019, but some of the characters still wear 1990s-style Seattle grunge gear. Alanis fans will love the way many of her classics are presented. For example, “Ironic” is performed during a high school writing class and characters stop to say what people said back when the song first topped the charts: Many of Alanis’s examples of “ironic” things like “a black fly in your chardonnay” or “rain on your wedding day” aren’t ironic at all. Regardless, “Ironic” is a great song.  “You Oughta Know”—the scorned woman’s anthem that made Alanis a household name, with its lyrics like “would she go down on you in a theater? —takes on a whole new meaning as sung by Lauren Patten as Jo.

Some of Alanis’ later hits are also included and used in clever ways to weave their way around the narrative. “Hands Clean” from Under Rug Swept—a song about sexual abuse Alanis encountered when she was a teenage pop singer in Canada, years before Jagged Little Pill—is used to tell the story of the rape of a teen character, Bella (Kathryn Gallagher). The infamous yet catchy “Thank U” is also here—the 1998 hit in which Alanis thanks India, terror and silence.

The Alanis songbook nearly 25 years after the release of Jagged Little Pill is still influential and groundbreaking in its own right. Alanis was always “real” and truly ahead of her time. She was singing about abusive men and helping to empower women years before the “#MeToo” movement.

Diablo Cody’s turgid story is overwhelming at times and so full of “issues” that it becomes absurd.  An experienced director like Diane Paulus should have been able to fine-tune the story much better, and Sidi Larbi Cherakaoui’s choreography is literally all over the place.

There are many fine performances in Jagged Little Pill, particularly Ms. Patten as Jo. However, despite all the talent on the Broadhurst stage, it is unfortunate that Alanis’s music could not have been used for a more satisfying musical.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published December 12, 2019
Reviewed at December 11, 2019 press performance.

‘JAGGED LITTLE PILL’: Elizabeth Stanley & Kathryn Gallagher. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘JAGGED LITTLE PILL’: Elizabeth Stanley & Celia Rose Gooding. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘JAGGED LITTLE PILL’: Celia Rose Gooding, Lauren Patten & cast. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘JAGGED LITTLE PILL’: Derek Klena & cast. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘JAGGED LITTLE PILL’: Derek Klena. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘JAGGED LITTLE PILL’: Elizabeth Stanley & Heather Lang. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘JAGGED LITTLE PILL’: Lauren Patten & cast. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘JAGGED LITTLE PILL’: Celia Rose Gooding & Antonio Cipriano. Photo: Matthew Murphy

The post ‘Jagged Little Pill’: Angst & Alanis’ songbook appeared first on StageZine.