Posted on October 2, 2007 at 10:24 pm

THEATRE by Mark Shenton
30 September 2007

PARADE (five stars)
Donmar Warehouse, London WC2

[…]There’s a more tender portrait of a marriage under immeasurable strain in the soul-baring and searching musical Parade, which ran for little over two months in its original 1998 Broadway production but in its far more intimate British premiere proves its thrilling worth.

Composer Jason Robert Brown is one of the great hopes for the serious American musical and here has created a score that is a seamless tapestry of mood and feeling, full of heartfelt anthems and yearning ballads.

Based on the true story of a Yankee Jew who, transplanted from Brooklyn, New york to 1913 Atlanta, Georgia, finds himself accused of the murder of a young female worker at the pencil factory he works at, Leo Frank sings in the courtroom, “It’s hard to speak my heart.” But the show itself goes straight to that of the audience as his wife steadfastly stands by him as he faces Southern prejudice and politics in which an outsider can quickly become a convenient scapegoat.

Lit in the sepia tones of a fading photograph by Neil Austin, Rob Ashford’s production brings this sad, gripping story to constantly illuminating life. It’s not, it’s true, a bundle of laughs; but as played and sung with exquisite intensity by Bertie Carvel and Lara Pulver, there’s a heartbreaking beauty to the way events tragically unfold. For those who want thier musicals with more grit than glamour, it’s unmissable.