Reviewed
by Will Stackman
After
two strong but critically-challenged runs in New York, Off-Broadway and on,
plus success in L.A. and recently in 'Frisco, Tony Kushner's semi autobiographical "Caroline
or Change",
a music drama in folk opera style illumined by Jeanine Tesori's eclectic score, is having its
New England premiere in a first-rate effort by Speakeasy Stage Co.--in
association with North Shore Music Theatre. The production features some of the
best musical actors in Boston, with award-winning actress Jacqui Parker in the title role. It's set in
Port Charles, Lousiana, in the home of a well-off Jewish family. It's fall,
1963, just after the Kennedy assassination as the Civil Rights movement is
heating up across the river in Mississippi and Alabama.
The
rest of director Paul Daigneault's strong ensemble includes IRNE nominees Merle
Perkins as Caroline
Thibodeaux's best friend Dotty and Jacob Brandt as grieving Noah, the young son
of the Gellman family, where Caroline's the maid. Sarah Corey is Jacob's new stepmother, Rose,
and IRNE winner Sean McGuirk plays Sarah's father, a old time radical. One of the
culminating moments in the play is a argument which erupts at dinner during
Grandfather Stopnick's Channukah visit between the old Red and Caroline oldest
daughter Emmie, a follower of Dr. King, played Shavanna Galder, a Wellesley sophomore. Almost
peripheral to the action, but central to the Gellman family's malaise Michael
Mendiola as
Stuart, Noah's father, incessantly plays his clarinet, remembering duets with
his late wife, Noah's mother. At the same dinner, local stage veterans Dorothy and Dick Santos play his parents.
The
action begins in the lonely basement where Caroline does the daily laundry
waiting for Noah to get home from school. Working in this grim retreat, which
she feels is "under water" are her companions, the Washer, the Dryer,
and her Radio, which all sing. The Washer is done by Berklee grad, A'Lisa
Miles,
resplendent in white. She also sings the Moon, a role with a touch of "The
Magic Flute." The somewhat satanic Dryer is IRNE winner Brian Richard
Robinson, got up
with a period pompadour and ruffles. Robinson also appears as the Bus,
personified by its black driver, with a placard around his neck directing negro
passengers to the rear. The Radio is a MoTown trio of Anich D'Jae Wright, Emilie Bradlee and Nikki Stephenson performing choreography devised
by Jackie Davis
who also has the family dancing around the Channukah table. Caroline's younger
children are BosCon student Breanna Bradlee (Jackie) and local 3rd grader Dominic
Gates (Joe). Her
oldest son is in Vietnam. She divorced her husband for desertion and domestic
abuse.
Kushner's
post-modern opera, featuring a lot of sung-through dialogue and only a few
arias, depends on the musical ensemble, all effectively supported by Tesori's
intricate score. Music director IRNE winner José Delgado, conducting a six-piece ensemble
from the piano backstage, keeps the action moving along with this versatile
cast, who bring a range of interesting voices and tones to the show. It doesn't
sound like a musical comedy, similar to Tesori's first effort,
"Violet," which frequently goes beyond its popular roots. Only area
mikes are used to balance the sound, so the strong voices are quite real. So is
the storyline which could easily slip into soap-opera, but is elevated by the
abstract characters, the music, and the looming crises of Vietnam, the Civil
Rights movement, and to bring things right up to date, Katrina. Maybe Kuschner
should revisit Caroline Thibodeaux after the flood.
The
various scenic locations are efficiently handled on Eric Levenson's unit set. Caroline's basement
and front porch roll on and off into the same area downstage left which becomes
the Bus Stop, and briefly the kitchen. The Radio appears mostly on a high
platform above. The Gellman's dining room a few steps up stage right, where
Stuart practices incessantly, has Noah's room behind up a curved staircase
backed by a tall louvered window. The latter let's IRNE winning light designer,
John R. Malinowski
use interesting shadow gobos on occasion. IRNE winner Gail Astrid Buckley has done her usual careful
costuming, catching the conservative style of the period. Her costumes for
Caroline's abstract companions are witty. Some entrances are made past the
audience left and right, allowing Daigneault to keep the action intimate, as it
was at the Public Off-Broadway before transferring to the Eugene O'Neill.
The
show itself has endearing qualities and memorable moments. There's an
intellectual distance at times which cuts off the development of some scenes,
moving too soon on to the next incident of interest. The show was cut down from
its original three hours with some loss of information. But Caroline's drama,
after peaking with ³Lot¹s Wife², is extended in her final aria, a reprise of
"Underwater"--with Noah alone in his room, suggesting that change is
coming. The change in the title, by the way, refers first to the coins which
Noah forgets in his pants and Caroline carefully removes. This becomes central
to the plot when his stepmother, who was his dead mother's best friend incidentally,
decides to teach him a lesson and directs Caroline, who is indeed underpaid, to
keep what she finds. When she finally finds the $20 bill his grandfather gave
him as Chanukah gelt, the situation becomes untenable for both these lonely people. Together
with "Ragtime", extended through the 28th at the New Rep with added
weekday performances, "Caroline or Change" marks the continued
development of the American Musical Theatre, for all the dead-weight of the
juke box concoctions clogging the Broadway stage.