color purple starting previews today. — Page 3

Dear LittleWing,

Thank you for writing my review for me.

Love,
andyf


I agree with everything you said.

The score was good, but pretty forgettable. I laughed when I read how you can't even remember a part of any song because I was all ready to disagree, but I remembered I've been singing "Till We Reach That Day" since intermission, which is, in fact, not from The Color Purple, but it did make me wish Flaherty and Ahrens had done the score.

I also thought Sophie and Shug stood out a LOT more than Celie, Sophie in the scenes and Shug in the music. And LaChanze was SERIOUSLY underutilized.

I was waiting for her to have a big song...at some point in the show...either act...and I'm still waiting ("waiting for life to begin..." siiiiiiiigh....again with the F&A).

I was really expecting an amazing, "Wow, there's going to be some serious competition for the Tony" performance, but given her material, or rather, the lack thereof, I don't think LaChanze should get it right now (not to say that I think LuPone really deserves it either), but yeah...LaChanze is capable of a LOT more and I'd really love to see them fix that role.

On the up side, the cast is beyond solid; they're all REALLY talented. The sets and lighting are really great.

I agree with the comment about the sound problems; I couldn't even hear a lot of stuff and I was in the front row.

Also the nipples...wow, uncomfortable. They could easily fix that by lowering the tops, and I really think they should.

The show has potential, but also needs a lot of work.
And PLEASE GIVE LACHANZE A BETTER PART!!!

Also, if it's not too late, if they could bring in Flaherty and Ahrens to do the score, I would REALLY appreciate that.

Thanks.

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Not having seen the show, I can't comment directly on your impressions but I'd like to make two points:

Firstly, Just because the tunes from a show are hummable, doesn't mean that the show is necessarily "good". I don't think people walk out of the superb "Piazza" humming dividing day but I'm sure many people will be humming "I believe in you" from the very mediocre WIW. Just because a score is hummable, that does not make it a superior score. I think we can all hum "life goes on" from Titanic but very few of us would claim that it's a good song.

Secondly, I'm not sure Flaherty and Ahrens would have done any better a job with this show. As much as there was a lot to like in "Dessa Rose", the score was not very good.

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How many songs did Sophia lead-sing?