This thrilling revival of Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori’s musical begins its first half with a stage bare save for a Confederate memorial statue in the centre of Lake Charles, Louisiana. Before the second half, the plinth is there, the feet are there, and the severed head lies on the ground. Part of me wanted young Noah Gellman to come along and get his head stuck in the statue’s after the manner of The Simpsons’ main titles. However, there is already a wealth of stuff going on, so much so that the disappearance of the main bulk of the statue is only referred to in passing, not portrayed, in the course of the show itself.

Such statue removal is one aspect of the great (yet gradual) change being alluded to as the civil rights movement takes wing in the American South in late 1963. The other side of the coin – literally – is small change: Caroline, maid to a white Jewish family, is instructed by their stepmother to teach eight-year-old Noah a lesson in responsibility by keeping any coins she finds in his pockets when doing the laundry. Kushner’s dramatic picture coalesces out of the difference between Rose Gellman’s view of trivial generosity and Caroline’s sense of humiliating charity yet economic imperatives: the odd quarter to the Gellmans could mean dental treatment for Caroline’s son. Matters grow more and more heated (heated like the basement in which Caroline does the washing, accompanied by actors singing the parts of the washing machine, spin dryer and radio), culminating in a Hanukah party when Caroline’s more militant daughter and Rose’s old-school Brooklyn-Jewish-leftie father have a ding-dong argument about the ethos of non-violent resistance.

Kushner always tries to fit at least a quart, if not a full gallon, into a pint pot, and often (his masterpiece Angels In America not excepted) ends up with quite a lot slopping over the sides. In Caroline, however, what happens is fizz aplenty. Jeanine Tesori’s score blends contemporary musical-theatre idiom with a predominant soul/gospel feel (and at times a vein of klezmer into the bargain). When I first saw the piece, on its UK première at the National Theatre in 2006, I was unimpressed by this aspect. I now realise that on that occasion I was unable to hear the music itself because of the excessive, modish coloratura of many of the vocals. In Michael Longhurst’s revival, the singers hit the notes rather than skittering around them. Sharon D Clarke, magnificent in the title role, is the epitome of this approach: she has a gloriously powerful singing voice, yet it is also pure, with a little vibrato only being added towards the end of a note’s duration. Dujonna Gift-Simms, Tanisha Spring and Keisha Amponsa Banson as the Motown-style radio trio are almost as disciplined.

Sarah Hemming, reviewing this production when it opened in Chichester last year, called it “intimate”, even in a 1200-seat space. Thankfully, it retains this feeling in the Playhouse. We engage with just about every character, and the modestly upbeat ending confirms that, in the words of Jebediah Springfield, a noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.

Written for the Financial Times.