D.C. on the Fringe

Speaking of off-beat, Washington's 2008 Fringe Festival is currently in full swing. According to its organizers, the Capital Fringe is about "unjuried, risk taking, independent performing arts." The city provides a cornucopia of performances - more than 600 individual performances involving over 200 companies in 30 venues, located all around the District. A moveable feast.

The festival inspires artists and arts organizations to venture into uncharted territory. So it was fitting that a Theatre Lab production called Parade would also push the edge of entertainment. A critical hit on Broadway during its brief run in 1999, the musical was conceived and directed by Hal Prince. It is not a musical in the traditional sense of the American musical, but a serious look at a little examined time in American history: the trial and lynching of Leo Frank in the Atlanta of the 1910's - a place still unashamedly racist and anti-Semitic. The crime Frank was accused of, murdering a 14-year old factory worker in his pencil factory, and the subsequent trial where witnesses were coached to testify against this Jewish man from Brooklyn who was and would always be a stranger in white Southern society, is portrayed affectingly by Buzz Mauro.

Musical it is, though a tragedy at that. According to the program notes, the musical score is one of the toughest in all of musical theatre. Atonal, with complex harmonies, an experience professional company would still have difficulty telling this long, complicated story through music and dialog. Performing in the auditorium of a church near the National Museum of American Art and the Verizon Center, this cast - a mix of amateurs, professionals and newcomers, teens and adults - brought the story to life with uneven finesse but great passion.

And the story of Parade, difficult though it may be, is worth hearing. Fitting within the context of the Capitol Fringe Festival, this was "unjuried, risk taking" performance artistry. A moveable feast, Washington's cup overfloweth. I urge natives and visitors alike: partake.