The Color Purple, based on Alice Walker's novel, book by Marsha Norman, music and lyrics by Brenda Russell, Alii Willis and Staphen Bray, is a musical about transformation: from the pits to the heights, from slave to success, from ogre to kind man -- it's like a hundred-year- old melodrama mixed with the contrast to the central drama of old ladies twittering. It's two shows: cute, funny rural characters and a young girl's tragic story. LaChanze, who plays the lead, is an amazing performer, and gives a transcendent performance. When she is fourteen, at the beginning, you'd swear you're seeing a real, very young girl on the stage. When she's fifty at the end, we see a real fifty-year old. She'll blow you away -- not an unconvincing moment, and a big voice that will lift you out of your seat. And the powerful Felicia P. Fields as a strong feisty woman is the other cornerstone of strong reality in the show, aided by Renee Elise Goldsberry, Brandon Victor Dixon and Elizabeth Withers Mendez.
Much of the rest is caricature: the bad guy is an animal with no human feeling, the cute townfolk entertain us with surface performances, demonstrating rather than being their characters. There is a good men's chorus of six, there are women dancers who are athletic without being really sensuous -- it's all a gesture of sexuality with no steam. Not that bouncing around and booty-shaking aren't fun -- it's very entertaining, but there is so much more to this story. The theme is too powerful to sink into mere entertainment, but I guess the producers want to broaden their audience base and not keep it too serious for too long.
A really active, artistically beautiful set by John Lee Beatty, good costumes by Paul Tazewell that fulfill the production's motifs, and fine lighting by Brian MacDevitt. Donald Byrd's choreography, including an African-themed dance, is fun. There is a number near the end about pants that gives us an upturn as Cinderella -- uh -- Celie (LaChanze) regains her inheritance (an Andrews Sisters type song). The sentimentality takes over for the happy ending drenched in sugar, and there wasn't a dry eye in the house, including mine, as the closing anthem filed the theater.
Sure I enjoyed it. The chance to see the magic of LaChanze is worth the trip.
