‘Parade’ Review: Ben Platt Stuns in a Powerful Broadway Production of an Essential American Musical
Frank Rizzo Traveling from the relative calm of the Clinton era to more perilous, contemporary times of mobs, mendacity and political mayhem, the much-admired but short-lived musical “Parade” has now found its moment in a brilliant Broadway revival. A decade after its Broadway bow in 1998 under the direction of Harold Prince, when the show received awards but not a lengthy run, a significant re-do directed by Rob Ashford at London’s Donmar Warehouse in 2007 gave the challenging show and its dark subject matter a stronger structure and new life. Last fall’s acclaimed gala presentation at New York City Center built on that work, offering a stark and searing passion play of a production, complete with broad strokes, moral lessons and harsh indictments. It also revealed the work as an essential American epic that resoundingly speaks to our times. Now on Broadway, it boldly fills in a vast national canvas, from its Civil War prologue to its modern-times coda.