Review: Belmont University's Soul-Stirring PARADE

Traditions never completely disappear. They may fade and grow dimmer in our collective memory, but they remain a part of our lives for as long as there is someone who remembers, however faintly, celebrating a particular event or marking a special holiday in ways that are unique unto themselves. In the stunning Broadway musical Parade - with a remarkably prescient book by Alfred Uhry (whose body of work includes some of the most evocative Southern plays of recent memory, Driving Miss Daisy and The Last Night of Ballyhoo, both of which focus upon the lives of Southern Jewry through a lens focused ever so intently upon Atlanta, Georgia) and a lushly beautiful musical score by Jason Robert Brown (The Last Five Years and The Bridges of Madison County), tradition and the accompanying sense of history that lives on in our recollections of what has come before play a commanding role in telling the near-legendary story of a particular murder cum scandal that rocked the South more than 100 years ago: the murder of a young factory worker named Mary Phagan and the "wolf in Jew's clothing," Leo Frank, who was lynched in retaliation for the horrific crime.

Happening less than 50 years after the surrender of Lee to Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, thus bringing to an end (for all intents and purposes) the War Between the States, Mary Phagan's murder and rape fueled enough headlines and yellow journalism to keep it thriving to this day, while also ushering in a new era for the Ku Klux Klan that saw its influence flourish and its membership rolls grow exponentially.

Now onstage at Belmont University's Massey Performing Arts Center in a compelling and completely engaging production from director David Shamburger, musical director Jo Lynn Burks and the rest of the creative collective (including choreographer and assistant director Emily Tello Speck and musical theatre coordinator Nancy Allen) at Belmont University Musical Theater, Parade comes at a perfect time in our nation's contentious evolution. It is provocative: You won't leave the theater with a certain lilt in your voice or lightness in your step; rather, you're far more likely to be caught up in your own thoughts about how things so often remain the same even as change is constantly happening all about you.

As challenging a work of theatrical artistry that you could possibly conceive of, Parade affords BUMT students a sublime opportunity in pursuit of excellence in a production that vociferously demands to be seen and experienced. It is one of the year's best musicals in a Nashville theatrical season that has boasted one after another significant stage triumphs, with two leading performances that are stunning in their complexity and passionate delivery.

Remember these two names from this review, even if you can recall nothing else I've written: Michael Spencer and Emily Ludwig. Cast as Leo Frank and his devoted wife Lucille, the two Belmont University students deliver performances of extraordinary depth that belies their youth, each actor giving much of themselves over to their characterization to ensure that every heart is touched, every mind transported simply by witnessing their stellar turns in a play so deeply affecting that you'll long be feeling the reverberations of the emotionally draining evening.

In the aftermath of the Civil War and the period of Reconstruction that followed, Southerners found themselves mourning the loss of the war and battling to hold on to the last vestiges of their unique way of life - one presumably filled with a sense grace and high ideals (according to the writers of fiction who longed to rewrite American history with their deferential treatment of the long lamented "glorious cause") but one that was, truth be told, built upon the backs of slaves and poor whites (not so unlike the Phagan family of Marietta, Georgia). Amid revolutionary change for a society loath to accept it and in the early years of what became known as "the American century," the story of Atlanta factory manager Leo Frank and young Mary Phagan perhaps seemed predestined given those quickly changing times. Their shared story reads as if created from whole cloth (cotton, of course) by grasping and ambitious journalists seizing upon the public's hunger for scandal and intrigue - a hunger often perceived to be of more recent vintage, but which has, in fact, existed for as long as two or more people first shared gossip of what was happening in their tiny village.

Uhry and Brown have brought the true story of Leo Frank and Mary Phagan to the stage in the moving and elucidating Parade, a remarkable adaptation of the story that filled reams of newsprint in 1913-14 with a story that still tantalizes and scandalizes. To be clear, Parade is not your grandmama's musical comedy, which is not to say that the mining of true stories and controversial themes for inspiration for musical theater is something new (imagine, if you will, how audiences must have responded initially to Jerome Kern and Edna Ferber's treatment of miscegenation - a made-up word to give interracial marriage a fancy-sounding moniker - or how they felt the impact of Rodgers and Hammerstein's treatment of racism in South Pacific or domestic abuse in Carousel), but it is epic in its scope and unsettling in its contemporary resonance.

Parade is a modern take on the legend of Leo and Mary, using current idioms to relate their story while retaining the altogether palpable sense of tradition and history that continues to inform everything that happens in our "New South," which ain't so new, after all. The simmering rage and barely masked racism and virulent anti-semitism that flow throughout Parade continue to reverberate, particularly in the tumult of post-election American in 2016.

Consider the continued presence of the Ku Klux Klan (originally established in Pulaski, Tennessee, as a response to the perceived indignities suffered by white Southerners during Reconstruction), which was given new life in the aftermath of Mary Phagan's brutal slaying and the conviction of Leo Frank for the crime, and you'll realize that despite all the progress that has been made, there's still a long row to hoe before a post-racial society can be realized.

Uhry's evocatively written book is a richly drawn - one of the primary attributes of the BUMT production is how it makes you feel the sense of early-20th century optimism that fueled Atlanta, which had risen from the ashes of Sherman's march to the sea in 1864 - remarkably accurate account of the story that provides its basis: Leo Frank, a Brooklyn Jew, comes south to run Atlanta's National Pencil Company and ends up marrying Lucille, a completely assimilated Jewess, whose uncle owns the factory. As legend has it - and newspaper headlines trumpeted - 13-year-old Mary Phagan, a poor white Southern girl, came to the factory manager's office on Confederate Memorial Day (a holiday still written in red on some Southern calendars and still venerated by aging belles and their beaux) in 1913 to pick up her meager pay envelope before heading out to enjoy the festivities of the late April day. She never made it. Mary (played by Maddie Palmaccio in BUMT's "Atlanta Cast" that appeared onstage for opening night) never took the first sip of cool lemonade on an already balmy late Spring day, nor did she meet her would-be beau Frankie Epps (played by Nathanael Phillips, whose rendition of "The Red Hills of Home" is flawlessly performed) at the nickelodeon for the latest silent picture show.

Only Mary Phagan, displaying the exuberance which only the innocent can maintain and then is struck down in her youthful beauty, seems relatively unscathed in the aftermath of her murder and the ensuing political/legal and social carnival that derives from her untimely demise. Yet, as The Knights of Mary Phagan (the KKK-inspired legion of vigilantes that seek to visit their horrible brand of justice upon the citizens of Georgia) come into existence in the wake of her death, her legacy becomes mired in ugliness and untruths, cloaking the reality of her story is something far more unsettling and insidious.

Mary's bruised, battered and violated body was found on the dank cement floor of the factory basement by the company's night watchman (the always-watchable Dylan Davis takes on the role of Newt Lee), setting off a media frenzy in the days before anyone ever knew - or even gave a good goddamn - what a media frenzy was a decade before coverage by the national press became de rigueur when a young Floyd Collins became trapped in a cave in Western Kentucky (and which provides the fodder for Adam Guettel's equally stirring musical, Floyd Collins). In short order, Leo Frank was arrested and convicted of the crime (in the musical, he lawyer never even gets to cross-examine the prosecution's witnesses), and sentenced to death by hanging at the behest of a screaming mob who may as well have been carrying torches and pitchforks while calling for the quick and unmerciful death of the vilified and hated Yankee Jew.

In a world filled with silliness and frippery - quite unlike the frothy, confectionary musical comedies that audiences seem to take to - one wonders what it was about the story of Leo and Mary that "hooked" Uhry and Brown. In much the same way that his other, more famous scripts are drawn from family history and the legends of his Atlanta hometown, Uhry's uncle owned National Pencil Company, the happenstance of life providing him with a uniquely personal perspective on the story.

Brown was brought to the project by director Harold Prince when Stephen Sondheim turned down the opportunity to provide a score for the musical that became Parade. Brown's skills at crafting beautiful melodies with expressive, articulate phrasing that show off the power of language to near-perfection made him the obvious choice to create the lushly beautiful score that provides Parade with such awe-inspiring moments that will be seared into your heart and soul. His "The Old Red Hills of Home" recalls the regional anthems that are a part of the Southern experience, while he shows off a command of the theatrical in songs such as "The Picture Show" and "Big News." Conversely, he creates ballads like "All the Wasted Time" and "You Don't Know This Man" with grace and an almost insouciant ease.

Parade represents the very best of musical theater of the late 20th century and early 21st: Uhry and Brown take a true story that is filled with over-arching themes of tradition, of time and place, of the ever-moving cavalcade of human history and fashion it into a work of art that almost surreptitiously engages the viewer, delivering a history lesson in the process, and challenging pre-conceived notions of the society from which the stories are derived.

With its focus on life in the South some 50 years after "The War" (spoken in too many syllables in the way we Southerners like to drawl out our words), the pervasive themes of class struggle, changing social mores, the coming homogenization of America are presented in Parade with careful consideration and attention to detail (the mesmerizing, confounding facts of the story are borne out beautifully in song and in scene work). The myriad themes on display in Parade are operatic in their scale and the profundity of the story being related, but Uhry and Brown ensure that it retains a strong connection to the sometimes mudane and oftentimes commonplace absurdity of life by maintaining a focus on the lives of the real, flesh and blood people whose lives provide their inspiration. The story is made even more universal and, thus, more palatable for contemporary audiences, Uhry and Brown use the relationship of Lucille and Leo Frank to provide the show's heart: the loving relationship between the two, which at first, seems cold and distant, develops in a passionate affair of two hearts intertwined in pursuit of truth and grace. That Uhry and Brown never allows that romantic subplot to devolve into pure sentiment is testament to their artful approach to the remarkable story.

The script walks a very fine line, presenting the facts and expounding upon them with barely a hint of hyperbole. You cannot watch Parade and easily separate the characters using some good guy/bad guy paradigm. Rather, much like life, the story is far more complex and, in turn, unstructured in its way. Leo Frank is not a very likable man; he's tightly wound and more than a little imperious and condescending, out-of-place in his surroundings, bridling at the assimilation of Southern Jews who don't really seem like Jews at all. Spencer plays every charged emotion with a sense of realism that's sometimes staggering: You believe he is the officiously economical and efficient Leo Frank one moment, while with the simplest turn of phrase he can break your heart.

Ludwig's Lucille at first seems like an assimilated dilettante or simpering Jewish debutante (not unlike Uhry's Lala Freitag from The Last Night of Ballyhoo), fearing for her own social position in light of her husband's alleged crimes and misdeeds, only later realizing the implications of the self-imposed bigotry and highly charged situations in which she finds herself mired by social convention. Ludwig's second act duet with Spencer - "All The Wasted Time" - is, quite possibly, the production's musical highlight and the pair's obvious trust of each other (both their characters', but perhaps more importantly, that of the two actors) is astonishingly in its sheer power.

Prosecutor Hugh Dorsey (played with force and tremendous stage presence by Graham Trout, in a performance that likely foretells future stage success for the aspiring leading man) is an ambitious politician and religious zealot, who betrays his own racial and social prejudices while making sure to examine all his own options. Craig's impressive commitment to the role will keep him well within your sights throughout the show's more than two hours of playing time.

Quintan Craig delivers a strongly focused and ultimately committed portrayal of Georgia governor Jack Slaton, the only individual who seems capable of taking control of the situation and meting out "justice" for both Leo Frank and Mary Phagan. Slaton is shown in all his questionable glory struggling to reach a decision on whether or not to take action and Craig makes the most of his assignment to portray the politician as a man both impressed by his own position and tethered to reality by the changing times and the subterfuge of his political enemies. Margaret Butler is delightful as Georgia first lady "Miss Sally" Slaton and her onstage chemistry with Craig is impressive.

BUMT song-and-dance man Kyle Caress is given the opportunity to show off his obvious skills in the role of journalist Britt Craig, whose florid prose drives the story and almost certainly ensures Leo Frank's fate in the process.

Perhaps most noteworthy about this production is how these young actors capably and convincingly portray characters many years their senior. Never once does it seem stilted or forced - or like some sort of stagey artifice - rather, they play their roles with impressive maturity.

Shamburger's direction keeps the show's pace moving along at a near-cinematic clip and he makes fine use of the MPAC stage in his creative retelling of the tale. Burks' pit musicians performer Brown's score with alacrity and fervor (although sound issues result in the muddying of the mix that renders some lyrics lost amid the sometimes too-loud music) and choreographer Emily Tello Speck has created some timeless movement that helps the story to move forward with a sense of both traditional movement and contemporary musical theater dance intact.

Ashley Wolfe's period-flavored costume help to clearly define the time and place of the play's action, while Cassidy Petersheim and Caroline Morris' lighting design help to set the production's tone with their evocative shading and illumination. Rusty King's sound design is uneven, as alluded to in my statement about the mixing allowing the orchestra to overwhelm the vocals from time to time, needs some tweaking, but this is Nashville and theatrical sound design here is "meh," at best (and, I'll admit, maybe I feel as though I have to find something to quibble with in an altogether satisfying theatrical experience).

Parade. Book by Alfred Uhry. Music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown. Directed by David Shamburger. Musical direction by Jo Lynn Burks. Choreographed and assistant directed by Emily Tello Speck. Running through November 20 at Massey Concert Hall, Belmont University, Nashville. Running time: 2 and one-half hours (with one 15-minute intermission).