Kander and Ebb were musical maestros at matching form to content. Cabaret treats the rise of the Nazis in 1930s Germany as a nightclub act; Chicago turns murder and justice into vaudeville. Their final collaboration was more daring still. The story of a huge miscarriage of justice in 1930s Alabama, which left nine young black men, falsely accused of raping two white women, jailed for many years, is reframed as a minstrel show. Apparently, when some of the defendants were eventually released they ended up in such an entertainment.
Minstrel shows – in which white performers blacked up and played to black racial stereotypes – thrived into the second half of the 20th century. Here, the form becomes inverted to unsettling and often savage satirical effect as a company of black actors, presided over by Julian Glover’s white interlocutor wearing an Uncle Sam hat, gleefully caricature white bigotry, and the failures of a justice system in which the innocent are found guilty because they are black.
Susan Stroman’s production – cleverly and simply designed by Beowulf Boritt – mines the dark, brutal humour to an entirely merited and an almost uncomfortably provocative degree. The choreography is often electrifying, particularly in a brilliantly nightmarish tap-dancing sequence featuring an electric chair. This is a show that boasts a brilliant ensemble, but Brandon Victor Dixon shines particularly as Hayward Patterson, a man who refuses to sacrifice the truth for parole.
The score doesn’t have the earworm catchiness of Kander and Ebb’s best shows, and dazzles more than it delights. But this is a genuinely radical musical, full of stinging indignation and plaintive power, which reminds of the cost to individuals of the civil rights movement that had to fight so hard to bring about the end of racial segregation in the US.
• Until 21 February. Box office: 0844 482 9673. Venue: Garrick, London.
