'The Color Purple' evolves since Atlanta world premiere
PHILADELPHIA — Thank goodness, it doesn't begin with a funeral.
If your experience with "The Color Purple" ended with the 2004 Alliance Theatre world premiere, you may be grateful that the musical telling of Alice Walker's novel no longer starts with the young Celie and Nettie sprawled over their mother's coffin.
As the national tour of the Broadway production arrives at the Fox Theatre on Tuesday night, here's a sneak peak, based on a recent viewing at Philadelphia's Academy of Music.
Meet the new Celie. Broadway star LaChanze, whose husband died in the World Trade Center tragedy while she was pregnant with their second child, won a Tony Award for portraying Walker's scrappy heroine. But don't underestimate the tour's Jeanette Bayardelle. The Bronx native — who recently picked up an NAACP Theatre Award for her work as Celie — is an extraordinary vocal talent with a comedic charm that's pure and original.
Crowd favorite returns. Felicia P. Fields may keep a Chicago address, but Atlanta audiences treated the original Sofia like homefolk. Happily, the unsinkable trouper made the transition from Broadway to the touring company, and her Sofia remains as big and brassy as ever. Atlanta native Stu James plays Sofia's husband Harpo, whose pretty-boy looks are practically a plot point.
And what about Shug? New York actress Angela Robinson gets to do the nude bathtub scene and the juke-joint strut as the sexually voracious "queen honey bee" Shug Avery. Warner Robins native Jenna Ford Jackson is Robinson's understudy, and may get a chance to "Push Da Button" a time or two while visiting her native state.
Less is more. Designer John Lee Beatty's elaborate set — which used a giant turntable to spin the action from Georgia to Africa — is cleaner and less complicated than it was at the Alliance or on Broadway. Bayardelle says part of the scenery was left behind after the Los Angeles run. "It was too much to lug all that stuff," the actress quips — with no complaints. "I like it better. The set is not upstaging the actors. ... If anything, it makes it better."
