The Color Purple Comes To Broadway

By Keith Boykin, in theater
Thursday, December 29 2005, 1:55PM

I've now seen The Color Purple two times on Broadway, and each time I've been thoroughly entertained. It's an uplifting, inspiring and enjoyable piece of work. But be warned. Those who come to the Broadway show hoping to find the popular Steven Spielberg movie may be disappointed. From beginning to end, the theatre performance follows Alice Walker's original Pulitzer Prize-winning book, not the film.

To understand what The Color Purple achieves on stage, you might think back to another Broadway musical, The Producers. The two shows are nothing alike, but there's a scene in The Producers when Max Bialystock and his partner Leo Bloom approach a potential director to convince him to do their show. The director responds with timeless advice that somehow seems fitting for The Color Purple.

No matter what you do on the stage
Keep it light, keep it bright, keep it gay
Whether it's murder, mayhem or rage
Don't complain, it's a pain, keep it gay

Mel Brooks apparently intended the scene to be a satirical social commentary on Broadway, but it's just as appropriate as a social commentary on America. Audiences want to be entertained at the theatre. As the song says, "People want laughter when they see a show. The last thing they're after is a litany of woe."

That poses a challenge for The Color Purple. It's a story of intense sadness that, as almost everyone knows by now, ends with a climatic triumph. The lead character, Celie, suffers immensely before she finally grows strong enough to speak up and stand up on her own. How do you turn such a story into a Broadway musical with catchy show tunes and daring dance numbers?

Turning A Book Into A Musical

When producers first approached novelist Alice Walker about making her book into a stage play, Walker now admits, "At first I was not enthusiastic. I didn't necessarily want to go back to the pain of what had happened after the film. It was so difficult."

The release of the film version of The Color Purple had been met by protests from some groups who complained that the film depicted black men in a negative light. Others had trouble with the depiction of the lesbian relationship between Celie and Shug Avery, although the relationship was considerably watered down from the book to the film.

The Broadway musical version of The Color Purple begins and ends with direct quotations from Alice Walker's novel. The first lines are etched on the curtain before the show even begins: "Dear God, I am fourteen years old. I am I have always been a good girl. Maybe you can give me a sign letting me know what is happening to me." Similarly, the show ends with a musical finale that incorporates the book's famous ending: "I don't think us feel old at all....I think this the youngest us ever felt. Amen."

But the double entendre from The Producers song fits appropriately because this new musical version of The Color Purple manages to "keep it gay" in both senses of the word. We see Celie and Shug kiss. We see them profess their love for one another. And we even see Shug naked with Celie. And yet, somehow, the audience -- with a remarkably large contingent of black folk for a Broadway show -- barely flinches. I sat in front of a row of school kids on my second viewing of the show and the kids reacted more maturely to the intimacy between the two women than I've seen some grown men and women react to lesbianism on stage or on screen.

From Drama to Comedy And Back

What's remarkable about this production is that it manages to move somewhat effortlessly from serious dramatic issues to hilarious comedic numbers. The producers seem to have approached the show as a musical about serious topics rather than as a serious piece that just happens to have music. But the music in the show is not the same music you may remember from the film. You won't find "Sister..." or "God Is Tryin' To Tell You Something" or anything else that sounds like the movie. Instead, composer and lyricist Brenda Russell and her team created all new music, including the not-to-be battered women's anthem, "Hell No!," the lovely ballad "Too Beautiful for Words" and the unforgettable theme song, "The Color Purple."

It's also remarkable that this production features an all-black cast, something I've never seen before in a big Broadway show. Even the scenes that involve white people have been written in a way that removes the white characters from ever needing to appear on stage. Perhaps that explains why there were so many black faces in the audience in the otherwise Great White Way.

Felicia P. Fields is powerful and phenomenal as Sofia, Elisabeth Withers-Mendes makes a colorful and exciting Shug Avery and La Chanze is a genuinely empathetic figure as Celie. Kimberly Ann Harris, Virginia Ann Woodruff and Maia Nkenge Wilson were also noteworthy as the hilarious three church ladies who instigate their way through the show with quick numbers like "Who The Daddy? Who the Daddy?" and "This Is Your House. This Is Her House." The production also features a friend, dancer Jamal Story, as a member of the ensemble cast.

I cried several times the first time I saw the show, and I almost cried once when I saw it again recently. In the scene when Celie declares that she may be black, she may be a woman, and she may be ugly, but she's here, you can't help but feeling proud of her growth and proud of the Broadway production that makes you feel that way.

The Color Purple is now playing at the Broadway Theatre (1681 Broadway) in New York.

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