50 Favourite Musicals: 28: THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS (2010) (John Kander, Fred Ebb)

The 50 shows that have stood out down the years and, as we get up among the paint cards, the shows that have become the cast recording of my life:

First performed: 2010, Vineyard Theatre, NY

First seen by me: 2013, Young Vic, London

Productions seen: one

Score: John Kander, Fred Ebb
Book: David Thompson

Plot: The device of a minstrel show is used to explore one of America's most shocking miscarriages of justice: In 1931, nine young black men - aged from 13 to 20 - were arrested and sentenced to death for the alleged rape of two young white women in a boxcar train.  Although the death sentences were commuted - and one of the women admitted on oath that the accusations were all lies - the Scottsboro Boys were made to endure re-trial after re-trial.

Five memorable numbers: GO BACK HOME, NOTHIN', COMMENCING IN CHATTANOOGA, HEY HEY HEY HEY!, NEVER TOO LATE

Sometimes I see a show and within the first 15 minutes I know I can relax as I am safe in the hands of practitioners at the top of their game, THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS was such a show.  Those practitioners were composers John Kander and Fred Ebb, writer David Thompson and director / choreographer Susan Stroman who met in 2002 to find a new project to work on. They revisited the court room territory of Kander and Ebb's CHICAGO and looked at famous American trials, and the case of the Scottsboro Boys was chosen.  Work was underway when lyricist Fred Ebb sadly died in 2004 putting the show on hold.  In 2008 Stroman asked Kander to try writing the unwritten lyrics and two years later, the show appeared Off-Broadway.  It transferred to Broadway later that year but frustratingly did not find an audience and closed two months later, ironically it was nominated for 12 Tony Awards after it closed but won none.  I saw it when Stroman recreated her show at the Young Vic - with five cast members from the US show - where it became a sold out hit and it later transferred to the Garrick in the West End for a four month run.  Soon after the show opened on Broadway it had to run the gamut of protesters protesting Stroman's use of the minstrel show.  What these clowns could not understand was that the device of the minstrel show was just that - an ironic device where the avuncular white Interlocutor doubled as the various judges who denied the men justice, while the minstrel show's two resident comedians Mr Bones and Mr Tambo play the men's defence lawyers, prosecutors and racist policemen and warders.  During the course of the action, the nine men playing the Scottsboro Boys slowly take over the storytelling - much to the Interlocutor's frustration - until the finale is disrupted by them refusing to give him the happy ending he wants.  Shadowing all the action is a black woman who responds to the injustices and mistreatment with sorrow; this all comes full circle when she closes the show, climbing on a bus and refusing to move her seat.  It was a bit obvious but is based in truth, Rosa Parks and her husband had campaigned for the Boys' release. The score is 100% Kander and Ebb - their unique sound filtered through vaudeville numbers, high-stepping cakewalks, blues ballads, and jazzy tap. A show about the human spirit that entertains while shocking you at the same time...  I would love to see it again.

Here are the original Broadway Scottsboro Boys - lead by the marvellous Brandon Victor Dixon who appeared at the Garrick Theatre in London too - singing the opening "Hey Hey Hey Hey" and the joyous "Commencing In Chattanooga" at the 2011 Tony Awards, singing as they travel on the box-car, unaware that it leads not to adventure and happiness but to years deprived of their liberty...

THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS at The Garrick Theatre

I was in two minds whether to blog again about THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS, who have changed theatrical prisons from the Young Vic to the Garrick as it's a virtual straight transfer but last night, while reading Richard Eyre's collection of essays WHAT DO I KNOW?, I read this excerpt from the writings of theatre design visionary Edward Gordon Craig:

The Art of the Theatre is neither acting nor the play, it is not scene nor dance, but it consists of all the elements of which these things are composed: action, which is the very spirit of acting; words, which are the body of the play; line and colour, which are the very heart of the scene; rhythm, which is the very essence of the dance.

After reading that I thought that the notoriously mercurial Craig would go crazy at THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS as that quote describes Susan Stroman's production.

Since I saw THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS at the Young Vic in 2013 - do the clicky for my blog (shared with The Jersey Boys) here - the show won both the Critics Circle and Evening Standard Awards for Best Musical and was also nominated for 6 Olivier Awards.  It is great that the show is getting a second bite of the London cherry and there have been some replacements in an already exceptional cast.

The most obvious replacement is Brandon Victor Dixon as Haywood Paterson, the nominal leader of the nine teenage black boys wrongly accused of the rape of two white girls in Scottsboro, Alabama.  Dixon originated the role in 2010 and he was excellent, burning with a smouldering sense of his innocence.

For 21 years the Scottsboro Boys faced re-trial after re-trial, they saw execution dates came and go and heard one of their accusers recant her testimony only to still be judged guilty, until finally - long after the media had moved on - they were paroled in drips and drabs.  Haywood had managed to escape in 1948 but was re-captured in 1950 after a bar brawl which saw him sentenced for manslaughter.  He died in prison two years later.  82 years after that Spring day when they had been arrested, the nine Scottsboro Boys were finally exonerated by Alabama's governor.

John Kander & Fred Ebb's score bounces off the stage with it's mixture of "teeth, tits and tonsils" showstoppers and heartbreaking ballads but there is no padding, each song moves the action forward, illuminating the characters and the situation and also sounds sensational under Phil Cornwell's musical direction.

Susan Stroman's tight direction and exhilarating choreography still thrills, Colman Domingo and Forrest McClendon are still shining as the minstrel show comics Mr. Tambo and Mr Bones, James T. Lane is still stopping the show as the recanting accuser with "Never Too Late Ruby Bates" and the inventiveness and daring of staging it through the medium of a minstrel show still works marvellously well.

The show is on until 21st February... see it!