Ben Platt stars as the doomed Leo Frank in Alfred Uhry and Jason Robert Brown’s musical “Parade,” in a new production at the Bernard B. Jacobs.
How well do modern theatregoers seeing “Parade,” at the Bernard B. Jacobs, know the story of Leo Frank? It’s been more than a century since Frank, the Jewish superintendent of an Atlanta pencil factory, was accused of the sexual assault and murder of thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan, railroaded into a guilty verdict, tantalized with the possibility of an appeal, then kidnapped from prison and lynched in Marietta, Georgia.
Foregrounding that sentence is one of the discomfiting choices in a sometimes contradictory, often impressive show. In a 2021 talk to an online class, Uhry spoke of having a frisson of doubt about Frank’s innocence, which is widely accepted. “Weknow he didn’t do it,” he said. Uhry, whose grandmother played cards with Frank’s widow, says he’s ninety-nine per cent sure that the real killer was the factory’s sweeper, Jim Conley ; Arden’s production seems to wonder if that’s the right proportion.
Brown’s spectacular score is also a crazy quilt, a tour of Americana forms, from barrelhouse rags to Charles Ives-influenced symphonic grandeur. It creates its most chilling effects through musical collision. For instance, the erotic, bluesy song that Conley performs with a chain gang is actually a quasi-confession, simultaneously gorgeous and appalling, particularly as sung by the astonishing Grayson. And the musical kicks off with near-cacophony.
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