Alfred Uhry and Jason Robert Brown’s musical Parade is a beautiful drama about the ugliest side of human nature. Set in Atlanta in 1913, the show is an intricate study in contrast and complexity. The Greendale Community Theatre’s staging of the historical drama admirably captures that intricacy onstage in a production that opened last week. Michael Stoddard plays Jewish factory manager Leo Frank. Stoddard is compellingly vulnerable as a Northerner experiencing debilitating culture shock in the South.
The era of the piece is quickly established in a series of songs that whisk the story along to the investigation of the murder of a girl who works at Frank’s factory. Leo is detained for questioning. Before long, he’s tried and convicted of a murder he did not commit. Far from painting the simplistic story of an innocent man falling victim to an evil, bigoted Atlanta conspiracy, Uhry and Robert Brown deliver the bewilderingly tragic details of a sinister dynamic working its way through people looking to thrive and survive in a criminally flawed culture.
The production vividly brings many of the angles of the Leo Frank tragedy to life in a slow and steady rhythm that blurs and bleeds its way from beginning to end. The play opens with a very moving and noble depiction of Southern pride with very stirring performances of “The Old Red Hills of Home” and “The Dream of Atlanta.” An infection of hate subtly introduces itself. By the end, that hate has become aggression that explodes in a dazzlingly dark “Where Will You Stand When the Flood Comes?” The beauty of the culture is twisted and distorted into a nightmarish vision of the darkness that beauty can become.
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Through Aug. 1 at Greendale High School Auditorium, 6801 Southway, Greendale. For more information and tickets, call 414-817-7600 or visit greendaletheatre.org.
