It ain't Oklahoma! Parade at the Donmar Warehouse. Photograph: Tristram Kenton
My favourite musicals tend to involve some kind of love story with plenty of tap-dancing. I also like a show within a show (preferably within a barn) as a vehicle for stringing together a collection of tuneful and witty numbers with little or no relevance to the predictable boy-meets-girl narrative. Light-hearted escapism is what musicals do well, and the great shows of Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart and the Gershwins remain a testament to the uplifting power of great songwriting. As Porter tells us:
'Be like the bluebird, who never is blue, For he knows from his upbringing what singing can do!'
Quite. Even the big Rodgers and Hammerstein shows, which steer the musical away from its show-about-showbusiness comfort zone, are highly aware of what the genre can get away with. Any unpleasant business in Oklahoma! is sandwiched between verses of The Farmer and the Cowman Can't Be Friends which, in spite of its pessimistic view on farmer-cowboy relations, is rather a jolly song.
It's not that my favourite shows can't do tragic, but the tragedy they're best at is of the subtly poignant kind - think Cole Porter's Every Time We Say Goodbye or the Gershwins' But Not for Me. When it comes to expressions of deep emotion, the confines of the heavily rhymed verse-chorus structure can become risibly limiting. The characters reach a point where all they can do is sing it again, louder. (Anyone seeking confirmation of my point should go and see Stephen Schwartz's Wicked, a wit-free and melodically barren showcase for the Apollo Victoria's amplification system.)
Which is why Jason Robert Brown's Parade, currently playing at the Donmar Warehouse in London, is such a remarkable achievement. Hailed as "one of Broadway's smartest and most sophisticated songwriters since Stephen Sondheim" (a backhanded compliment if I ever I heard one), Brown has succeeded where his more brilliant predecessor failed, in creating a big, ambitious show that is watchable throughout.
Based on the true story of Leo Frank, a Jewish man falsely accused of the murder of a young girl in 1913, Parade recounts his pursuit of justice amid the religious intolerance and racial tension of America's Deep South. In a collage of popular musical styles, Brown turns the limitations of the genre to his advantage. The ever-repeating marches, ragtimes and ballads of the score become the language of the lynch mob, the inflexibility of the strophic song a metaphor for the empty rhetoric of hatred. By deliberately shunning musical and verbal sophistication, Parade offers a harrowing example of the potency of mediocre songwriting.
The musical has certainly seen better days; Never Forget, the Take That musical, is poised to open its bowels into the overflowing cesspit of London's West End. The genre has taken the blame for all that is wrong with Theatreland. The ecstatically received Parade seems a remarkable exception, but I can't help thinking that it's something of a lone masterpiece. Showbiz history is littered with the corpses of musicals that bit off more than they could chew. To name but a few, The Fields of Ambrosia (a musical about the electric chair), Which Witch? (a kind of Norwegian version of The Crucible) and, of course, Napoleon - the Musical, remain cautionary examples to aspiring songwriters: if in doubt, stick to boy meets girl.
