#1
Posted: 12/1/05 at 6:19pm
Broadway.com is a Rave:
Jukebox musicals and chamber pieces are fine and well. Ditto theme-park spectacles and ironic lampoons. But the new musical The Color Purple reminds us what Broadway's for, and all that Broadway can be: big-hearted, broad-stroked storytelling, with the epic emotional sweep only music can conjure.
On its own terms, this deft, moving adaptation of Alice Walker's seminal feminist novel works like gangbusters; that's cause for rejoicing enough. We should also save some hallelujahs for what it represents: another alive-and-kicking incarnation of that seemingly endangered species, the straightfacedly serious book musical. A breed born with Show Boat, nurtured to adulthood by Rodgers & Hammerstein, and most recently invoked by Ragtime and Caroline, or Change, it has miraculously survived generations of deconstruction, mockery and, worst of all, indifference.
Maybe it takes outsiders and first-timers to ignore the steep odds against such a leap of faith. Though the book is by seasoned librettist Marsha Norman, the inventive, infectious score and lyrics were fashioned by an unlikely triumvirate of pop tunesmiths, Brenda Russell, Allee Willis and Stephen Bray. And director Gary Griffin, though no musical-theater neophyte, is making his Broadway debut here. They've made some choices we can quibble with, and, given the show's incendiary subject matter, even squabble over. But you'd have to have ice water in your veins not to be stirred by this unabashed paean to human resilience, and impressed by a production as masterfully executed as it is soulfully intended.
http://www.broadway.com/gen/Buzz_Story.aspx?ci=522088
Jukebox musicals and chamber pieces are fine and well. Ditto theme-park spectacles and ironic lampoons. But the new musical The Color Purple reminds us what Broadway's for, and all that Broadway can be: big-hearted, broad-stroked storytelling, with the epic emotional sweep only music can conjure.
On its own terms, this deft, moving adaptation of Alice Walker's seminal feminist novel works like gangbusters; that's cause for rejoicing enough. We should also save some hallelujahs for what it represents: another alive-and-kicking incarnation of that seemingly endangered species, the straightfacedly serious book musical. A breed born with Show Boat, nurtured to adulthood by Rodgers & Hammerstein, and most recently invoked by Ragtime and Caroline, or Change, it has miraculously survived generations of deconstruction, mockery and, worst of all, indifference.
Maybe it takes outsiders and first-timers to ignore the steep odds against such a leap of faith. Though the book is by seasoned librettist Marsha Norman, the inventive, infectious score and lyrics were fashioned by an unlikely triumvirate of pop tunesmiths, Brenda Russell, Allee Willis and Stephen Bray. And director Gary Griffin, though no musical-theater neophyte, is making his Broadway debut here. They've made some choices we can quibble with, and, given the show's incendiary subject matter, even squabble over. But you'd have to have ice water in your veins not to be stirred by this unabashed paean to human resilience, and impressed by a production as masterfully executed as it is soulfully intended.
http://www.broadway.com/gen/Buzz_Story.aspx?ci=522088
"What a story........ everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end." -- Birdie
[http://margochanning.broadwayworld.com/]
"The Devil Be Hittin' Me" -- Whitney
Updated On: 12/1/05 at 06:19 PM
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