The original Broadway production of The Color Purple, which I saw in previews a decade ago, was an empty pageant with none of the poignancy of its source material. It also felt frustratingly neutered, presenting what is a rather dark story (including rape, incest, spousal abuse, racism, and a lesbian sexual awakening in a time, place and culture where it wasn't welcome) as a clap your hands and raise the roof jubilee, tailor-made for church groups who didn't want to be offended. That was one of the main reasons I avoided the much lauded current revival until yesterday -- but I am glad that I finally went. This production -- much like Deaf West's Spring Awakening earlier this season -- perfectly represents what a good revival can do, and made me reconsider a show I hadn't been enthusiastic about the first time around. John Doyle's production scrubs away some of the more ornate elements of the original production, and the musical unspools with great feeling and dramatic tension. Even the unctuous church ladies seem to have a purpose in this production.
This isn't news to anyone who's seen the production, but Cynthia Erivo gives one of the great performances I have ever seen on stage. She has a voice for days, but she also has a direct manner -- wounded yet steely -- that is perfect for Celie. The character's gradual awakening to womanhood and personhood felt so genuine in Erivo's hands. She received one of the longest and loudest ovations I've ever witnessed, and it was so deserved (exceedingly rare in the day and age of perfunctory standing Os).
Heather Headley is a remarkable Shug -- almost enough to make me forget Margaret Avery from the film (high praise). Her voice retains the alluring, dark-hued quality that she brought to Aida 16 years ago, and she was equally at home in the part's tender moments and the roof-raising numbers like "Push da Button." And unlike LaChanze and Elisabeth Withers (both talented women) in the original production, I actually believed that Shug and Celie loved each other. To me, one of the most important aspects in this revival is that it does not shy away from the queerness of this relationship; Doyle, Erivo and Headley make it clear that Shug and Celie are more than just friends. And during the finale, when Celie sang the line "I don't this us feel old at all" directly to Shug (she sang it to Nettie in the original production), the message is loud and clear.
The rest of the cast, to a person, is superb. Danielle Brooks is a star.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
