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By Cynthia Citron
 LOS ANGELES —Less than a decade after the sensational “Dreyfus Affair,” the scandalous anti-Semitic prosecution of an innocent Jewish Army captain, became a cause celebre in France, a similar anti-Semitic prosecution began in Atlanta, Georgia. It was the trial of Leo Frank, a Jew and a Yankee, who ran the National Pencil Factory in that city.
The story begins on Confederate Memorial Day, 1913, a day of parades and Old South jingoism, during which 13-year old Mary Phagan, who had gone to the pencil factory to collect her paycheck, was raped and murdered. When her body was discovered in the basement of the factory, suspicion immediately fell on the aloof, workaholic “outsider”: Leo Frank.
Much was made of his Jewishness, but there were other factors at work as well. Atlanta was still smarting from the aftermath of the Civil War, and Frank, the Cornell-educated northerner, represented all the forces of evil that had defeated them. Moreover, when the unsubstantiated accusations and obviously coerced testimony led to Frank’s conviction and a death sentence, the case unleashed national outrage among all segments of society. Also among the protesters were some of the most influential newspaper publishers, capitalists, lawyers, and other much-respected members of the national Jewish community.
All of this turmoil is reproduced in Parade, a newly revised musical transplanted from the Donmar Warehouse in London to Los Angeles’ Mark Taper Forum with many of the original principals intact. (A new addition is T.R. Knight, who played the lovable George O’Malley on TV’s Grey’s Anatomy, here totally unrecognizable as the humorless Leo Frank.) A somber production, replete with emotional symbolism, Parade is less a “musical” than an opera, a historical narrative much like the legendary Porgy and Bess. And, as such, it is a triumph---albeit a profoundly joyless one.
Alfred Uhry, who wrote the Pulitzer Prize and Academy Award-winning Driving Miss Daisy and the Tony Award-winning The Last Night of Ballyhoo, also won the Tony Award in 1998 for his original production of Parade. That earlier production was directed by Harold Prince, who is credited as “Co-Conceiver” in this current production, although this revised version is directed (and choreographed) by Rob Ashford, who brought it here after directing it in London. This amazingly proficient and prolific group is augmented by Jason Robert Brown, who created the play’s music and lyrics and won a Tony Award for his Original Score in 1998.
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Brown’s paean to Georgia, “The Old Red Hills of Home” brings the huge ensemble cast onstage to introduce the Civil War theme. A gray-uniformed soldier with a glorious voice (Curt Hanson) sings of home as he prepares to march off to war. (Later, an older version of him returns on crutches with a missing leg.) There is an ever-present minister who clutches a Bible and is usually seen with a cross mounted behind him. And there is a Southern belle in a hoop-skirted, ruffled Scarlett O’Hara-type gown who floats across the stage from time to time, holding a parasol and saying not a word. There are battling lawyers and racist newspaper editors and journalists out to make their political fortunes on this case. And at various crucial times a huge backdrop of a Confederate flag, a portrait of Jefferson Davis, and other Southern patriots is illuminated behind the action. The lighting effects by Neil Austin, in fact, are some of the best moments of the production.
By the time we are introduced to Leo Frank in 1913, the war has been over for nearly 50 years, but the attitudes haven’t changed. As Frank notes, “Being Southern is not just being from the South.” He also puzzles over his wife, Lucille (Lara Pulver), wondering “how God created someone who is Jewish and Southern at the same time.” Lucille soon reveals, however, that she is not only Jewish and Southern, but a political activist half a century before her time, as she mounts her own personal crusade to save her husband. In a beautiful, haunting voice, she sings “You Don’t Know This Man,” and the stirring “This Is Not Over Yet.”
Ironically, the most moving subplot of this provocative and heart-rending true story is the blossoming love between Leo and Lucille Frank. A rather indifferent husband without much awareness of or respect for his wife’s strong character, he slowly comes to understand and appreciate her as she struggles with him through the endless trials and appeals that take his case all the way to the Supreme Court. Their final ballad, “All The Wasted Time,” will break your heart.
Parade is not a traditional musical, even though it has a wide variety of beautiful songs. Plus the show-stopping testimonial “That’s What He Said,” performed by the dynamic David St. Louis and the entire ensemble as they condemn Frank for the murder. But the show lacks something indefinable. While it has all the fine singing and dancing of a “gangster” show like Chicago, the humor and lightness is missing. The Frank story is a heavy-duty tragedy, full of racism, frustration, and anger, so if you prefer Betty Grable-Dan Dailey musicals, this show may not be for you. But if you’re into opera and industrial-strength drama, you’re going to love and appreciate Parade.
Parade will continue at the Mark Taper Forum at the Music Center, 135 North Grand Ave., in Los Angeles Tuesdays through Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays and 2:30 and 8 p.m., and Sundays at 1 and 6:30 p.m. through November 15th. Call (213) 628-2772 for reservations.
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