SPRING has sprung with a number of delightful, moving, first rate productions now in bloom on Boston stages! Here’s my take on two of them, both of which speak to the moment we are in: the indispensability of LOVE and COMPASSION and the tragic consequences when they are missing.
We need this show now: SpeakEasy Stage Company’s New England Premiere of A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE is a poignant farewell from founder/Artistic Director Paul Daigneault, a valentine to its all-star cast, and a testament to the power of theater to open hearts, illuminate the truth, and bind us to each other. The show honors the humble heroism of the “many” of no importance whose everyday struggles & triumphs are the stuff of an authentic life.
The premise is simple: a closeted gay man named Alfie Byrne (a deeply affecting Eddie Shields) is a bus conductor in Dublin who reads poetry to his passengers on their daily journey. Art is his escape and theirs as they travel the voluptuous rhetoric of Alfie’s favorite author, playwright, poet- the flamboyant Oscar Wilde. Alfie also directs the annual community theatrical put on by the St. Imelda Players, but, perhaps unconsciously chafing at the societal ties that bind him–he chooses a provocative play, Wilde’s “Salome,” and runs up against the Catholic Church. Alfie and this troupe of amateur performers must decide who they are–in themselves and to each other– and whether they have the personal courage to buck religion and society to put on this play.
Terrence McNally’s play is a many-faceted, luminous gem, and Daigneault’s direction, gentle but penetrating, elicits the most touching performances from a stunning cast of talented newcomers and Boston musical giants: Aimee Doherty, Kerry A. Dowling, Jennifer Ellis, Meagan Lewis Michelson, Will McGarrahan, Billy Meleady, Keith Robinson, Rebekah Rae Robles, Sam Simahk, and a beyond-hilarious Kathy St. George who kicks up her heels with choreography devised by Ilyse Robbins which had me on the floor. The thrust stage invites the audience into the intimate environs of these everyday lives, burnished in golden light and shadow (Karen Perlow) to reveal their very souls. Music and lyrics (Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens) flow from performer to performer, who weave in and out of the action and play all manner of instruments onstage — violin, accordion, clarinet, guitars, mandolin, percussion, glockenspiel (!) and deliver tunes anthemic and raucous, witty and bittersweet. The evening is wrapped in the harmonies of hope and love and truth and heartbreak which hold us together as we make our way through the wild world. This will be the last production directed by SpeakEasy Founder and Artistic Director Paul Daigneault before he steps down in June 2025 after 34 years of leadership. We will miss him–but DO NOT MISS A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE at SpeakEasy Stage through March 22!
PARADE now onstage at the EMERSON COLONIAL THEATRE IS A MUST SEE! This splendidly sung and acted production brings the heartbreaking struggle between justice and corruption into the harsh light of today. This 2023 Tony Award-winning Best Revival of a Musical is based on a gut-wrenching real life story which remains painfully relevant. In 1913 Atlanta, Georgia, 13 year-old Mary Phagan was found raped and murdered in the basement of the National Pencil Factory where she worked. Leo Frank, the Jewish manager of that factory was accused of the crime, convicted of her murder, and sentenced to death. The sentence was eventually commuted to life in prison by the Governor of Georgia who found flaws in the evidence and trial, and subsequently lost his re-election. A month later, a mob kidnapped and lynched Leo Frank in Mary’s Phagan’s home town in 1915.
Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winner Alfred Uhry wrote the book which frames the horror of Leo Frank’s fate within a growing love story between Leo and his wife Lucille, newlyweds who have moved to her hometown Marietta, Georgia to begin their married life together. Their growing love for each other as they are gradually caught up in the cross currents of hatred makes the musical even more poignant. Max Chernin as Leo Frank and Talia Suskauer as Lucille Frank have fierce, expressive, soul-stirring voices–separately and in stunning duet. It’s impossible not to tremble at their power, resonance, and conviction. In a cast bursting with remarkable voices, Ramone Nelson delivering Jim Conley’s seething defiance in “Feel The Rain Fall” stands out. The vocally demanding score by Tony Award-winner Jason Robert Brown is haunting and bittersweet, capturing the breadth of yearning, hope, desperation, and rebellion at the beginning of a new century churning its way through immigration, prosperity, poverty, and its own identity.
The production is a sweeping tale, grandly staged and, I won’t lie, is uncomfortable to watch. In it we see the threads of longing, hurt, and fear in the face of antisemitism, racism, socio-economic warfare, class hatred, political and cultural divisions between north and south, and the weaponizing of religion to achieve political power unfolding against the backdrop of the Confederate Memorial Day Parade. The show thus carries profound impact now as we witness the tearing of the tapestry of our current American life. I must take heart in the knowledge that though this true crime revived the KKK, it also solidified the founding of the Anti-Defamation League, and with it the possibility for truth and fairness. SEE PARADE –not only as a truly fine theatrical production, but as evidence of the value of art to express the bald truths that must be confronted if we are to see a just way forward. At the EMERSON COLONIAL THEATRE through MARCH 23!
