Review: PARADE at Eisenhower Theater Runs Through September

In two clicks of a mouse, a theatregoer can find a summary of Leo Frank's story; Parade, which tells it, isn't merely based on a true story, it IS a true story. So outlining the plot would be, by definition, a spoiler. Going to the theatre, of course, ought to be about more than plots and endings both happy and un-, as this fine production more than proves.

Leo Frank, a young Jewish man raised in Brooklyn, married into a well to do Jewish family in Georgia and by 1913 was managing a pencil factory in Atlanta. One of the strengths of Alfred Uhry's Tony Award-winning book for Parade is the evolution of the couple's relationship. Lucille Frank learns how to assert herself despite her culture-bound, disenfranchised status, and Leo Frank learns to grasp and appreciate her individuality and the universality of her power. Composer Jason Robert Brown's Tony Award-winning score gives them several splendid numbers and duets which reveal their growth and the love that deepens during their two-year ordeal. Max Chernin (Leo) and Talia Suskauer (Lucille), both outstanding singer-actors, flawlessly reveal this. Another terrific element in this revival of the 1998 show, which was co-created by 1994 Kennedy Center Honoree the late Hal Prince, are the photographs that director Michael Arden and his Projection Designer Sven Ortel use as backdrops. Being able to see the faces of the Franks, the court building and courtroom, the newspapers of the day, and many other documentary aspects of the places where the events in Parade happened makes many moments riveting.

Chernin and Suskauer aren't the only excellent singers in Parade. Jenny Hickman (Mrs. Phagan) movingly sings “My Child Will Forgive Me.” As Jim Conley, Ramone Nelson's enormous voice stands out in both acts. And understudy Brian Vaughn owns the demanding role of Governor Slaton who does some evolving of his own, elegantly goaded by Lucille Frank to do the right thing.

The right thing meant trying to undermine the dishonesty, antisemitism, and fake news which drive the antagonists and antagonism in Parade. The Georgia of 1913 celebrated Confederate Memorial Day with an annual parade, so the forms of truth that could have done Leo Frank any good remained obstructed by the barriers of hatred, prejudice, ignorance, domestic jingoism, and vigilantism. Apparently, the thing that keeps bringing audiences (and Tonys: this production won in 2023 as Best Revival and for Arden's directing) to Parade seems to be the show's implicit willingness to face and depict what Americans do wrong. It's a big, beautiful show about American mistakes: couldn't be more timely.

Parade runs 2.5 hours and through September 7 at the Kennedy Center.