Parade, the Alfred Uhry/Jason Robert Brown musical mounted by Boiler Room Theatre, is heading into its final weekend of performances.
As promised, Parade is a complex opus based on true events: the murder of a young girl, Mary Phagan, in Atlanta in 1913 and the subsequent trial and lynching of Leo Frank, a Jewish factory superintendent falsely accused of the crime. Director Sondra Morton stages the work well, using the entire BRT theater space to broaden the physical scope of the tawdry story, which involves hysteria, a rush to judgment and prosecutorial malfeasance. And while Parade is certainly a tale of legal shenanigans and injustice, it is also bookended by imagery and material that sustain the legacy of an angry, defeated Confederacy.
The Brown score is atypical, with some 35 numbers mixing gospel, folk and pop styles, the music often picking up where dialogue leaves off. While the songs effectively move the story forward, few of the tunes emerge as memorable through a single sitting, though the late Act 2 rouser, "Where Will You Stand When the Flood Comes?" does resonate as an offbeat showstopper.
Morton elicits strong performances from her cast of 18, including Paul J. Cook as Leo Frank. Cook has established himself locally as a director, with some solid efforts to his credit. But he's also a formidable singer and actor, and he invests his character with a sense of personal alienation that reaffirms the play's stark themes and dire conclusion.
As his desperate wife, Lucille, the very capable Megan Murphy Chambers brings her vibrato-rich voice to yet another first-rate musical role, and Matt Baugher, as the single-minded prosecutor Hugh Dorsey, also acquits himself well. For pure vocal power, Bakari J. King raises the roof and brings down the house on several occasions, including "That's What He Said," "Blues: Feel the Rain Fall" and the Act 2 opener, "Rumblin' and a Rollin'."
High-schooler Hope Dyra is gently affecting as the ill-fated Mary Phagan.
With all those good things in place, Parade still demands patience due to its quirky blend of song and speech, depressing story line, and toward the end, a contrived attempt to lift spirits. Those factors don't prevent us from admiring the production, but at times it feels more like an ordeal than entertainment.
