Caroline or Change, Minerva Theatre- 1st June 2017

I travelled up to Chichester the week before the start of my A Levels to try and escape from the madness and the stress and dread of revision. Chichester is perfectly placed in comparison to suburban London as a spot to escape to. From passing what likes a settlement from Game of Thrones (which is in actuality Arundel- but from afar could be Kings Landing) on the terrible Southern train journey to the quaint English village (Chichester is a city in name only!), it was very easy to forget the terror of the upcoming few weeks.

The show, Caroline or Change, was mightily impressive; a through-sung musical investigating Southern race relations in the 1960s through the prism of a black maid working for a Jewish household. Tony Kushner's initial dramatic act of anthropomorphising the household objects in what is otherwise a piece of musical naturalism helped to heighten and open the audience up, like in Angels in America, to the extraordinary nature of this very ordinary story. Jeanine Tesori's music formed occasionally moved into the operatic, using a range of musical influences from gospel to traditional Jewish modes to form a unique sound-world. Michael Longhurst direction was characteristically clear. As best demonstrated in his productions of Amadeus, They Drink it in the Congo, and A Number, Longhurst has a real skill for making very small stylistic decisions which best shines light and focus on the strengths of the written work as opposed to major changes which draw focus from the work to the director. In Caroline, this took the form of the use of a revolve, allowing the story to be effectively told to all three sides of the Minerva. Sharon D Clarke gave a showstopping performance, keeping in an anger that is only truly released in an Act 2 showpiece aria 'Lot's Wife'. The Broadway transfer of this production has just been postponed due to the virus but hopefully this underappreciated musical gets the audience it really deserves in it's first revival on Broadway.