"Caroline, Or Change.

"Caroline, Or Change at Studio 54 has many good things going for it: singers with big voices and wide ranges who make the most of the songs that they are given to sing; Ann Yee's choreography is entertaining for the most part, sans the camp, however, the best part about "Caroline" is the sets and costumes which are both by Fly Davis. A close second is the orchestrations by Rich Bassett and Buryl Red. In these two, the evening was enjoyable in how the music flowed as well as how Fly Davis's interpretation of this musical with its gregarious outfits continuously surprised throughout the musicals two and a half hours. Jack Knowles who did the lighting also made the most in keeping the audience entertained... he was at times circus like, at other times we had a sultry feel to the performance. The lighting was often in toto with the action, from the Jazzy feel of Lake Charles, Louisiana in the year 1963. The entire play takes place in just two months of that year, November- December.

The musical had its best number in the second act; the last five songs were the evenings very best- "Lot's Wife" and "Salty Fears" brought the house down, while "Underwater" and "I Saw Three Ships" were heartfelt and deep. if "Caroline" had this kind of energy and heart throughout the evening, this would have been a forceful show. Unfortunately, many of the songs that were written for the musical did not match the plot and never captured the shows soul. The shows failure was not the fault of the actors efforts; Sharon D. Clarke, Caissie Levy, Nasia Thomas, NYA and Harper Miles were outstanding singers and good actors.

The problem lies solely on Tony Kushner's Book & Lyrics. Kushner who is a much better movie writer (Munich and Lincoln) than he is with his theater credits. His "Angels in America" as well as "The Intelligent Homosexuals Guide to Capitalism and Socialism" as well as every other show I have seen of his have too many moving parts. Kushner gets campy, he get ridiculous and he tries to add more than needed into his story and the plot begins to not make any sense after a while. Like "Angels" story about AIDS, Kushner delves into Roy Cohn, and while Cohn is not enough, he brings the Rosenberg's into the mix and adds Mormons from Utah until it confuses even the biggest theater lover. "Caroline, Or Change" is not different, Kushner hits us with the South's Defenders, JFK, MLK, the Southern Jews way of like, the Northern Jews way of thinking. In the end and all through, the show never stays on point.

Like his "Perestroika, Millennium", we never really feel what Caroline Thibodeaux (Sharon D. Clarke) feels, not deeply anyway- there is no connection with the audience and that's what makes a great show, great. We understand that she is a Southern Negro and that she is living in poverty; we also understand that her husband was in the Navy and can't find a job, and as a result he drinks and beats her. Caroline has to get a maids job to support her four kids and she ends up working at the Gellman household. Noah who is the son of Stuart Gellman (John Cariani) has a deep dislike for his step mother, Rose and he finds refuge in the basement with Caroline. It would have been a better plot if Noah and Caroline had deeper conversations, more dialogue than they do. Instead, Kushner gives us Rose's father who is a power to the people communist and thinks the Negro will lead the nation away from capitalism. Kushner the theater writer takes jabs, makes statements but in the end he only fences with the audience on a superficial level.

If Kushner wrote about the relevant issues of the musicals time period, instead of Caroline debating on whether to keep Noah's change or not, if he dealt more with Caroline, the human being, her children and her worries about Larry, her forth who is serving in Vietnam, then we could have had something to enjoy more. In trying to be everything to everyone, Kushner only scratches the surface. The musical numbers in Act one (with the exception of "Basement") were not even in synch with the plot and this is because the Book & Lyrics conflict one another.

high res pics of caroline or change - Bing images

high res pics of caroline or change - Bing images