The red-white-and-blue bunting and brass band music feel familiar as “Parade” begins with a Memorial Day gathering. But the banners on display suggest an ill wind blowing: They’re Confederate flags.
At the Orpheum Theatre through June 8, the touring revival of this 1998 musical by Jason Robert Brown (music and lyrics) and Alfred Uhry (book) feels uncomfortably timely. In recent weeks, masked Proud Boys paraded briefly in Kansas City, white supremacists from abroad have been welcomed onto American soil, and Israeli embassy workers have been murdered in our nation’s capital.
In the Atlanta of 1915, where “Parade” is set, earnest tribute was still paid to southern soldiers lost in the Civil War, whites treated Blacks as lesser beings, and a Jewish factory owner was framed for the murder of a 13-year-old girl. The musical’s plot also incorporates political backstabbing, unabashed jury rigging, and the bereft families of innocent victims. “Annie” it ain’t. Tomorrow it could be.
Sustaining counterpoint
The real-life story of Leo Frank, who was not only convicted of a crime he didn’t commit but later kidnapped from his jail cell and killed by a lynch mob, is unlikely source material for a Broadway musical. But if you open your mind and approach “Parade” as if it’s an opera, it works surprisingly well.
Bookended by renditions of the folksong-influenced “The Old Red Hills of Home,” Brown’s dense and often dark score is brightened by underpinnings of Americana; a gospel theme here, a country twang there, glimmering like hope through the thick of it all.
Juxtaposing coercion, injustice, and unfathomable sorrow with gorgeously orchestrated music, Brown and arranger Daniel Felsenfeld allow us to stare into the abyss while simultaneously lifting us above it. There’s a sense of communion in the theater as the audience bears witness: “Parade” breaks you, but also builds solidarity. At a time when we have much to pray for, this is art as church.
Precise performances
There’s a fine-grained believability to the characters of Leo (Max Chernin) and his wife, Lucille (Talia Suskauer) thanks the actors’ performances and Uhry’s writing. Rather than heroic figures, they’re just like us, ordinary people caught in the flag-waving whirlwind of an extraordinarily intolerant society.
Familiar down to their flaws, we hear them condescend to each other, catch bits of bickering, and note facial expressions that slip toward contempt. Yet there’s never a doubt that they’re devoted to each other. The show also has a few delightful, startling sexy bits.
Both leads sing beautifully. Suskauer in a soprano that transcends her character’s circumstance; Chernin in a rich, round, occasionally otherworldly bass. The supporting chorus is also top-notch and the secondary characters sharply etched. Griffin Binnicker gives a particularly strong performance as Tom Watson, a ruthlessly opportunistic conservative newspaper publisher. His character’s conniving would have made my skin crawl even if the actor didn’t bear a resemblance to J.D. Vance.
‘Parade,’ through June 8. $58-$261. Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market St.
http://www.broadwaysf.com
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