ARTS . Theater Review

Loose Change

For those interested in contemporary musical theater, Caroline, Or Change is a must


	print	email	reply	rss feed

Published: Mar 20, 2007

"Nothing ever happens underground in Louisiana/ Cause there ain't no underground in Louisiana/ There is only underwater."

So sings Caroline Thibodeaux at the opening of Caroline, Or Change. This musical/chamber opera by playwright Tony Kushner and composer Jeanine Tesori is set in 1963, and was premiered nearly two years before Hurricane Katrina. For those interested in contemporary musical theater, Caroline is a must: a model of seriousness and ambition. Personally, I find the show only intermittently successful.

In New Orleans, a young Jewish boy, Noah Gellman, has recently lost his mother, and family relationships (with his clarinetist father, Stuart, who has retreated into himself; and his new stepmother, Rose, who is well-meaning but awkward) are tough. Noah turns his adoration on the saturnine housekeeper, Caroline, but she wants none of it. A divorcee with four kids of her own, she prefers to keep to herself and her chores (mostly washing and ironing, where she is serenaded by the machines around her, embodied as Berry Gordy-style acts), and to worry privately about the future.

The "change" of the title is in part literal: Noah leaves extra money in his pockets, and Rose tells Caroline to keep it if she finds it. But the "change" is also grander and more metaphoric, and no more needs to be said than this: Early in the action comes the assassination of President Kennedy. The play works best when dealing with the painfully stalemated relations between African-Americans and Southern Jews — even more specifically, the unintentional noblesse oblige that liberal boss shows employee.

But for me, the grander metaphors are forcefully and awkwardly superimposed on the fragile central story. Additionally, there's a folkloric quality that also feels artificial. When someone sings "Where's the moon? It should be here — the frogs is asking for it," we seem to have wandered into another show entirely. Tony Kushner is one of our great contemporary prose writers, but as yet he's an iffy lyricist.

Still, Caroline is an unquestionably powerful and provocative evening of theater, and the Arden forces (under the sure hand of director Terrence Nolen) have mounted an excellent production in every sense. There is much fine acting and especially singing from all quarters, but I'll single out for special praise: Griffin Back (Noah), who is charming and blessedly unprecious; Sherri Edelen (Rose), equal parts funny and heartbreaking; and the wonderful Joilet Harris (Caroline), who has given many great performances in Philadelphia, and now caps it all with this superlative tour de force.

Caroline, Or Change

Through April 8, Arden Theatre Company, 40 N. Second St., 215-922-1122.