'With Donald Trump in the White House and protest in the air, this extraordinary 2003 musical by Tony Kushner and the composer Jeanine Tesori feels right on the money. Inspired in part by Kushner’s own boyhood, it’s an almost entirely sung-through story of race, religion and the grotesque economics of exploitation.'

'Like Kushner’s earlier epic Angels in America, Caroline, or Change blends socio-historical breadth with intoxicating imagination.'

'Its rapturous lyricism is spiked with rage, joy, hope and pain, potent and sour-sweet as a deep slug of Bourbon. Michael Longhurst’s production — a transfer from Chichester — is fluid, fantastical, yet emotionally immediate. And Sharon D Clarke is so nakedly unstinting in the title role that to watch her seems a privilege.'

'So the appliances come to life and sing with her — stirring, yearning, angry music, soaked in the sweat and sizzle of Motown, R&B and the blues. The washing machine is a chanteuse in a dress of soap bubbles. The radio is a glittering girl-group trio, and the detested dryer, turning the basement hot as hellfire, is a velvet-voiced tormentor. A queenly silver moon croons nocturnal comfort after the long, weary working day; and all the melodies coalesce with the Mozartian clarinet and klezmer tunes of the Gellmans’ fractured domesticity.'

'The ensemble is faultless, and as the formidable, anguished Caroline, Clarke is devastating, her voice full of raw soul that shreds the heart, and sets it soaring. Sensational.'

To read the full review click here to visit The Times online.

'A singing washing machine? A crooning night bus? Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori’s 2003 musical set in Civil Rights-era Louisiana remains one of the most innovative modern examples of the form: a giddy marriage of fierce social observation and a gospel- and Motown-inflected score delivered by a cast that includes kitchen appliances and a rising moon.'

'Change takes on many meanings in Caroline, from the winds of revolution blowing through 1963 to the nickels and dimes that form the bedrock of the American dream. In a hellishly overheated basement in Lake Charles, Sharon D. Clarke’s eponymous black maid Caroline is impervious to the former and – it soon turns out – tormented by the latter as she sweats out her days laundering clothes for the Gellman family.'

'Longhurst underlines the brute economic forces that link the civil rights movement to the more recent Occupy protests – it’s telling that even the young Noah and Emmie acutely understand that American identity is defined by consumer power. But it’s his lavish execution of Tesori’s score that really captures the soul...'

'Beautifully staged and impeccably performed, this is an exceptional show.'

'The more times I see Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori’s richly textured through-composed musical set in the American Civil Rights era, the more convinced I grow that this is a modern masterpiece of considerable heft. This production, transferring from Chichester, is a rich asset for London theatre.'

'It’s 1963 in Louisiana and while everything may be changing around her, all is exactly the grinding same for implacable Caroline Thibodeaux (Sharon D. Clarke, magisterial), the black maid for a grieving white Jewish family. When it’s suggested that Caroline keep the loose change she finds in young son Noah’s pockets, it proves a problematic way of dealing with an underpaid grown woman.'

'The score swoops, swirls and swells through passionate conviction and quiet sorrow, as well as a wide range of genres.'

'Director Michael Longhurst’s work is sinuous and stylish – just look at the fun he has with the personified, singing Washing Machine (Me’sha Bryan), dressed in an exuberant costume of plastic soap bubbles – and amounts to a production of real grace. Abiona Omonua as Caroline’s rebellious daughter Emmie is a constant joy. A very classy show.'

To read the full review click here to visit the Evening Standard online.

Just as vital as Tony Kushner’s Angels in America is his 2003 musical written with Jeanine Tesori. It’s 1963; America is in ferment, yet nothing stirs in the basement of a Louisiana Jewish household, where Caroline (Sharon D. Clarke), the African-American maid, suffocates amid the laundry. The family’s young son leaves coins in his pockets; to teach him thrift, his stepmother (Lauren Ward) says Caroline should keep any untidied change. A well-meaning gesture, it humiliates everyone, and leads to a horrible roar of hate and shame. Kushner’s signature is his recognition that if people can change, so can the world. Yet Caroline can’t, won’t change. Michael Longhurst’s superb production hits every note, from singing domestic appliances to family rancour, anchored by Clarke, who is scorchingly powerful. Only once do you see her out of her anonymous white uniform. Clarke has a lion in her larynx, but a stone weighing down her soul. 

'Down in a sweltering basement in 1963 in Louisiana, Caroline, a black maid, is doing the laundry for the Jewish family she works for. The scorching Sharon D. Clarke wears a pressed white uniform and a thunderously glowering expression, simultaneously conveying her pride and her hurt.'

'It is too late for Caroline to make radical changes to her life and start again, but not for her firebrand friend Dotty (Nicola Hughes), nor her fearless daughter Emmie (a springy, sparky Abiona Omonua).'

'Tesori’s music, Fly Davis’s imaginative costumes and designs, and knockout performances give Michael Longhurst’s production a mighty, moving and magical impact.'

'Unusual doesn't begin to describe this magnificent musical by Tony Kushner, who provided the book and lyrics, and Jeanine Tesori, who wrote the music. It has a kind of bonkers bravura that wraps you in its enthusiastic embrace.'

'As in Angels in America, he weaves a fantasy from grim reality, bringing a singing washing machine and a singing moon onto the stage, while never losing sight of the anger and bitterness that afflict black Americans struggling to feed their families in a time of radical social change.'

'The musical explores all this with depth and sophistication. Kushner's lyrics are a mixture of profound poetry, savage political analysis, and sharp humour. Tesori, who later wrote Shrek the Musical and Fun Home, matches him with music of subtle brilliance, incorporating every style from klezmer to spirituals, from jazz to Motown, blending and burnishing them into a surging whole, full of engaging melodies.'

'This production, a transfer from Chichester, is directed with real flare by Michael Longhurst who is increasingly establishing himself as one of the best directors of musical plays in the business. It's designed by Fly Davis, with economy and imagination.'

'At the heart of it all stands a sublime performance from Sharon D Clarke that catches every note and beat of what it is like to be Caroline. Her voice is extraordinary, whether it's in her great rumbling shouts of pain at her condition, or the delicate melancholy with which she recalls her feckless husband. But what's also extraordinary is the stillness she brings to her part; you can see her sadness, her anger, her loss simply in the way she smokes her daily cigarette or stares out into the distance.'

'She's surrounded by a wonderful set of exuberant, telling performances, most notably from the lively household objects (Me'sha Bryan as the washing machine, T'Shan Williams, Sharon Rose and Carol Stennettas the radio, and Ako Mitchell as the dryer), from Abiona Omonua as her spirited daughter, and Naana Agyei-Ampadu as her quick-witted friend Dottie. As Noah, Aaron Gelkoff (on the night I saw it) brings such emotion to the part you forget he is only a child.'

'Ann Yee provides effortlessly clever choreography and Nigel Lilley conducts an excellent band. All in all, a thought-provoking and satisfying joy.'

To read the full review click here to visit WhatsOnStage online.