Between the Broadway opening of John Kander and Fred Ebb’s "The Scottsboro Boys," and Tuesday night’s Chicago premiere from Porchlight Music Theatre, more than six years have elapsed.
This has been an unfortunate state of affairs for any number of reasons — "The Scottsboro Boys" was, arguably, the last meaningful collaboration between these two giants of the American musical theater. Ebb died in 2004, but his agonized lifelong collaborator, missing the music every step of the way, finished his lyrics. The resultant show — which told the story of one of the many trials in American history to devolve into a racist travesty — used the mechanism of a minstrel show, adding a layer of objectified and theatricalized irony not dissimilar to what worked for Kander and Ebb’s other great courtroom musical, "Chicago."
And "Scottsboro" contains what might be the most beautiful song they wrote — "Go Back Home," a mournful ballad of longing enough to bring to tears anyone who ever has been away and in trouble. It launched the career of the spectacular Joshua Henry, who just left the Chicago production of "Hamilton."
I’ve also long been convinced that "The Scottsboro Boys" opened on Broadway before its time: before Freddie Gray, Michael Brown Jr. and Eric Garner, to name just three. Mine was not the majority view in New York — the show garnered mixed responses — but I always felt "Scottsboro" was a masterwork waiting for the right production.
Maybe, I remember thinking, a simple, intimate, deeply truthful one in Chicago.
Alas, the Porchlight production, although stacked with young talent and surely the product of enormously passionate and heartfelt endeavor, is not that production.
Let’s stipulate that intense prior affection for a piece is dangerous for a critic — all I can do with that reality is deliver a full disclosure. And let’s stipulate further that many of the problems with this show, which opened Tuesday at Stage 773, seem to flow from too much ambition and a desire to fulfill the weight of a long-anticipated Chicago premiere. No better motivation in the theatrical world
Simply put, though, director Samuel G. Roberson’s production does not manage to make sense of the show’s tricky structure — the juxtaposition of minstrel frame, which is arch and sardonic, not least since almost all the performers are African-American, and the humanity and truth of the miscarriage of justice therein.
This production is far better sung than staged, and some of these vocal renditions (Doug Peck is the musical director) begin to embrace the power behind this show. The rest is just not ready.
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The trick to the show lies in its embrace of aesthetic contrast — the way the racist routines of minstrelsy (run here by the aptly caustic Larry Yando) are structured to force a laugh out of you and then make that laugh curdle inside your guilty throat. For that to work, the show needs sharp and jarring transitions — sudden shifts in style and mood — instead of the broader theatrical wash that prevails here in a production where nothing really seems to change.
The show also needs simplicity — a lesson one could glean from the famous 1996 revival of "Chicago," where the tiniest gestures speak volumes. But instead of the minimalism of Bob Fosse and his disciples, choreographer Florence Walker-Harris delivers way too much. Too much for the performers, for the piece and for the space. There is too little quiet, too few moments for reflection (with the honorable exception of when James Earl Jones II and the cast perform "Going Back Home"), no place for pain and disappointment to hang for long enough in the air.
I’m convinced these actors — the other "boys" are played by Travis Austin Wright, Maurice Randle, Cameron Goode, Stephen Allen, Izaiah Harris, Trequon Tate, Jerome Riley Jr. and Jos N. Banks — could have done such a show, if they had been afforded more time and room to let their characters breathe, and if the show did not start out with the physical dial turned all the way to the right and then left there for one hour and 50 minutes.
That ignores the most powerful truth of all: For "The Scottsboro Boys," even the ones who escape Alabama justice, things always are getting worse.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
cjones5@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @ChrisJonesTrib
"THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS" – 2 STARS
When: Through March 12
Where: Stage 773, 1225 W. Belmont Ave.
Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes
Tickets: $45-$51 at 773-327-5252 or www.porchlightmusictheatre.org
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