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Paradegets the wrong melody stuck in your head, intentionally.
Its a plaintive melody with a martial undercurrent, waltzing over snare drums.
Paradetells you all that is coming from the start.
(Neo-Nazispicketedthe revivals first preview.)
(Frank was lynched at 31.)
Often, shes fed up with Leo for not seeing whats right in front of him.
It appeared in an era of pageant-like, serious-minded historical musicals likeRagtime.
Browns songwriting is weakest in this area.
In this revival, Arden emphasizes the true-crime elements of the musical to its detriment.
The story of Leos trial conveys its relevance, but Arden apparently worries that you might miss the message.
Theres a pageantry to its vision of the South that the score matches and examines, a know-thine-enemy approach.
Arden stages Leos lynching with clear-eyed horror, and Platt keeps him nobly prickly to the end.
The pairing of those two things is difficult to untangle, but the moment hits deep and unsettles.
It strikes intuitively and emotionally in a way that a recitation of the facts could not.
Paradeis at the Jacobs Theatre.
