New York City. 1863. The Civil War raged on. An extraordinary thing occurred amid the dangerous streets and crumbling tenement houses of the Five Points, the notorious 19th-century Lower Manhattan slum. Irish immigrants escaping the devastation of the Great Famine settled alongside free-born Black Americans and those who escaped slavery, arriving by means of the Underground Railroad. The Irish, relegated at that time to the lowest rung of America's social status, received a sympathetic welcome from their Black neighbors (who enjoyed only slightly better treatment in the burgeoning industrial-era city). The two communities co-existed, intermarried, raised families, and shared their cultures in this unlikeliest of neighborhoods.
There are pleasures in 'Paradise Square.' The terrific dancing tells its own story, a quintessential American (and Broadway) one: How African-American and Irish immigrant dancers learned from one another in New York and created a unique American art form - tap dancing. But 'Paradise Square' was largely a disappointment. By the end of its overlong running time, it felt overcrowded and overbearing; its staging too often of the stand in a line at the lip of the stage and stare school of emoting; its score loud, strident and insistent - well-sung, but not especially memorable and not much integrated with the story; its story of dubious historical accuracy and by-the-numbers plotting.
In that combination, I feel the meaty hand of the producer Garth H. Drabinsky, who seems to have used his influence to shape “Paradise Square” into a likeness of his previous hits. Like “Ragtime” in 1998 and the 1994 revival of “Show Boat,” it frames social unrest as the product of a few representative individuals and tries to fill the inevitable gaps with big sound and stagecraft. It also borrows a famous plot device from “Show Boat” — which is effective here even if the debt goes otherwise unpaid. But unlike those musicals, which were built on the frames of strongly written novels by authors with singular voices, “Paradise Square” feels almost authorless despite its many contributors, and the direction of Moisés Kaufman, known for a strong hand and conceptual coherence, does little to erase the impression of anonymity. (The design elements are likewise merely efficient.) Contingent and anxious, the show seems more interested in saying the right things than in telling a coherent story.
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