Director Robert McQueen revisits the extraordinary work of art that is Caroline, or Change

27Jan 2020 - Photos by Dahlia Katz

"Music communicates something that language can't," says director Robert McQueen (Fun Home, Falsettos) of Caroline, or Change. "Music seeps between the cracks of words and infuses language with a depth of meaning that can't be articulated. It seeps into these crevices and secret places and expresses the interior life of a character. The best musical theatre can be is when you take extraordinary words, the writing of someone like Tony Kushner, and you put music to that, it communicates a depth and I love that. It's the closest we have to Shakespeare. That is the possibility of musicals that makes them so exciting."

This is McQueen's second production of Caroline, or Change. The first in 2012, was not only a commercial hit but also award-winning and critically acclaimed. "I was saying to the company that there are musicals that I feel are really worth revisiting," he says. "And I love musicals and I've spent a lot of my life working on them and once you've done one it's done, but this is material like a classical text or a great composition. You can go back to continue to dig into because there's always something new to discover." 

McQueen paraphrases an article he just read in The Guardian, "With really great works of art there's always something to explore, to re-explore, to discover, to discover anew," before returning to Caroline, or Change. "This composition, this text, certainly feels like that. It's as pertinent today, maybe even more so, than when it was first created almost 20 years ago. It's really exciting to have the opportunity to go back in and do that. Particularly with this very, very remarkable company of actors who are willing to really dig in."

"Remarkable company" is an understatement. Headed by R&B superstar Jully Black, it also includes the incredible Damien Atkins (We Are Not Alone, The Gay Heritage Project, Mr Burns, Sextet, London Road) and the incandescent Measha Brueggergosman. How does one meld such extraordinary but seemingly disparate talents? "It's all about the narrative," says McQueen. "Whatever background someone comes from, innately everyone is a storyteller whether it's opera or R&B or pop music or classical. It's telling a story, revealing a human being and that's the task. It's going beyond the label or the identification of the style and stepping into the story."

McQueen emphasizes that, "It's all about the story and the context of the story. A big part of the task of the director is to incite the actors into a very specific world and to articulate that world as best one is able. To allow the actors' imagination to fill in what that world is. You go into the work assuming that everyone has the curiosity and passion to step into this world and reveal itself to them. And that's what's been happening."

Caroline, or Change tells an intimate story of racial tension set against the 'tumultuous background of the Kennedy assassination.' "It's important to remember that Caroline, or Change was originally written as an opera," says McQueen. "It was commissioned by the San Francisco Opera and Tony Kushner had a complete libretto when it fell away from the San Francisco Opera and New York's Public Theater grabbed it and eventually brought in composer Jeanine Tesori [Fun Home]. Kushner's words are operatic, Angels in America in its scope and what it's saying and in its poetry, it's quite operatic quote unquote. Caroline, or Change opens itself to that, but also to all kinds of voices coming into it and being brought together. The score moves through so many different styles, so many different ideas. You've got traditional Jewish music, klezmer, R&B, 1960's girl group music, opera . . . Jeanine Tesori brought all those voices together to create this particular piece."

McQueen has worked extensively in projects ranging from Mamma Mia to The Magic Flute and all points between. "Often the thing that happens with musical theatre is that you have all this possibility of expansion because you're dealing with music and words and often movement," he says. But what happens often is that it gets compressed into a cookie cutter form because its meant to be commercial and to appeal to a broad base of people. And those are musicals that I'm not generally interested in. I'm interested in musicals with a very specific story and the music informs that story, whatever it may be. Those are the pieces that require a real capacity to sit and listen rather than to let it land on you and to entertain. People will be entertained when they come to Caroline, or Change - there's a lot of humour, a lot of fun - but it requires an audience being present. That's part of our task in rehearsal, to create a world that invites an audience in and then holds them." 

McQueen then softens his assessment of the state of current musical theatre. "I can see any production that's thoughtfully created and get something out of it, but I think that the musicals you can step into with layers and layers beneath are few and far between. Caroline, or Change is an extraordinary work of art that will stand any test of time. It will be revisited over and over again because it captures a certain time in American history but it does it  poetically and it does it with extraordinary music and language. Even in the politics and context of 1963, there are things the characters talk about that are as contemporary as the morning headline in the newspaper. I think that's tell tale of any great work of art. It doesn't have a short shelf life. It's not so specific, it's very specific, but it's also dealing with a universal scope which will always keep it current."