Paradise Square at Berkeley Rep
Tonight my mom and I went to see a new musical. Berkeley Rep has become one of the theatres where new shows are tried out to see if they have what it takes to go on Broadway. This one is based on the history of Five Points, which was a neighborhood in Manhattan where, for a few decades up to and during the beginnings of the U.S. Civil War, Irish immigrants and free black people lived side by side, intermarrying, and sharing a neighborhood that was infamous for being one of the worst slums in the world.
The story was fascinating–two real-life historical figures were characters in it, though some of the timing was inaccurate. One was Stephen Foster (who wrote the song “Oh! Susannah”) and the other was William Henry Lane (who was highly influential in the invention of tap dancing, which grew out of a hybrid of Irish step dancing and African-derived dances that plantation slaves did–but he lived earlier than the years in which this show is set). Five Points fell apart when a draft was instituted, so that Irish immigrants were forced to serve in the army but black men were not allowed to volunteer. The Irish and Irish-Americans, including those recently arrived and escaping famine in Ireland, were sent to the front line as cannon fodder. Riots protesting the draft resulted in hundreds of deaths and many destroyed buildings. Black business owners mostly moved to Brooklyn after this.
The play basically told the stories of a few residents (fictional, other than the two mentioned above) of Five Points from early in the Civil War to the riots, and touched on issues including cultural appropriation, the Underground Railroad, and the dangers of the downtrodden turning against one another. The acting, singing, and especially dancing were fantastic.
[spoilers below]
Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/183162311116.
