The regional theatre premiere of The Color Purple is at Neptune Theatre now until June 2, 2019, and the production is of Broadway-caliber. In my twenty-five years of attending shows at Neptune, this production stands out to me as the strongest I’ve ever seen. Artistic Director Jeremy Webb has stressed that the show will not be extending; so, don’t wait, buy your tickets today.
The Color Purple is a musical written by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis and Stephen Bray (music & lyrics) and Marsha Norman (book), based on the 1982 Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Alice Walker. The show begins in 1909, fourteen year old Celie is pregnant again with her father’s child and once again he takes the baby once he is born and “gets rid of him.” Amid the horrors in Celie’s life her brightest light is her younger sister, Nettie, who shows promise in school and wants to be a teacher. When Mister comes around hoping to take Nettie as his wife, Celie goes in her place. Her father behaves as though she is worth less to him than a cow. Mister is violent and when Nettie refuses his further advances, she too disappears. Just when Celie’s life seems hopeless and unbearable she meets Shug Avery and everything changes. Shug is the only woman Mister has ever loved, she is a free spirited jazz singer whose zest for life, for adventure, and for pleasure cannot be contained. Celie falls in love with her and through experiencing a relationship rooted in trust and tenderness for the first time she begins to come into her own. She takes ahold of her power, and takes control of her future. It is a lot to pack into a musical, but Norman does a beautiful job of giving us just enough of the narrative to do justice to Walker’s sweeping epic, but not so much that we get lost in the details. The music roots us beautifully in Early 19th Century Georgia, and it is where we are able to feel the full depth of the emotions of these characters, from sorrow, to strength, to reckoning, to triumph.
Every single member of this cast is exceptional. Walker’s characters, and this story, are so beautifully complex and rooted strongly in both history and human nature. At its beating heart this story is about learning to love ourselves, it’s about gentleness, forgiveness, and the connections that give meaning to our lives. This is set against a backdrop of intergenerational trauma, racism, misogyny, homophobia, poverty, and the ways the first two generations of African Americans who were born after the 13th Amendment build community and work together to try to heal the lives, families, and futures that for over a century were irrevocably shattered by genocide, slavery, and violence. This is a lot of subtext for this company of actors to play, but it’s all there, and it feels seamless.
Keisha T. Fraser, Masini McDermott and Sarah Nairne play the Church Ladies, who function in the style of a Greek Chorus, cleverly helping spread the plot’s exposition like gossip. Their characters don’t have names, but they each bring so much unique personality to the roles. Write down Lyris Daye’s name. She is only 17 years old and attends Prince Andrew High School. She plays Olivia and her voice is already incredible. I’m sure you’ll be hearing her name again soon. Deborah Castrilli is charming as Squeak, a spunky young aspiring singer with a high pitched voice, and Andrew Broderick gives a sweet and poignant performance as Harpo, Mister’s son, who finds his way toward being a good husband and a good father. Janelle Cooper gives a beautiful performance as Sofia, a courageous, intelligent, and confident woman who eventually finds happiness with Harpo. Samantha Walkes plays Nettie. We first see her as a young girl of about eleven years old, full of an optimism incongruent to her situation, trying to comfort her pregnant sister. It’s clear here that they are both children, and the deep connection that is beautifully clear between Walkes’ Nettie and Tara Jackson’s Celie is the heartbeat of the show. Ryan Allen gives a masterful performance as Mister, who begins the play as a horrifying brute, but who ends up being genuinely transformed by Celie, the women in his community, and his son, Harpo. His performance of “Mister’s Song/Celie’s Curse” cracks his character right open, exposing all the vulnerable truths beneath his frightening behaviour and everything shifts. It’s an incredibly powerful and dramatic moment of theatre. Karen Burthwright plays Shug Avery with beautiful nuance. Shug is full of contradictions: she is independent, bold, unapologetically herself, and yet she has a soft spot for Mister that makes certain allowances for him. She loves Celie and values everything in their relationship that is safe and nourishing, but she still seeks the thrill and the danger she finds in the arms of men. Burthwright gives a vivacious performance of Shug’s jazz number “Push Da Button,” and a heart-rending performance of “Too Beautiful for Words,” the song where she first connects heart to heart with Celie. Tara Jackson’s Celie is a joyful triumph. Jackson moves with such subtly through each phase of Celie’s life, from a child playing a clapping game with Nettie, to a beaten down wife grieving for her sister and lost children, through her sexual awakening and her questioning of God, until, finally, she is able to muster the courage to speak her mind to Mister and to demand a better life for herself. The bloom that culminates with “Miss Celie’s Pants” showcases how dramatically she ends up being able to transform herself and her life. It’s a testament to Jackson and Director Kimberley Rampersad that she is able to do such justice to thirty years worth of emotional growth in a way that never feels forced or rushed. Jackson’s performance of the show’s eleven o’clock number “I’m Here” is one of the best musical theatre moments I have ever seen in my life. Jackson is a revelation in this role; it feels like Celie was written specifically for her.
Kimberley Rampersad does a lovely job of tailoring the staging perfectly to Neptune’s small stage. Often musicals make Fountain Hall feel small, but the openness of Tamara Marie Kucheran’s set and the way the actors use the space make it feel intimate, but not at all cramped. The focus is so vividly tied into the story that sometimes you don’t even notice how a set piece or prop move on or off the stage. It’s amazing how we are seamlessly taken across three decades, from Georgia, to Memphis, to Africa, and Rampersad knows exactly how to make the changes pronounced with just a few added details, allowing our imaginations to fill in the rest. The choreography adds an additional layer of depth to the story as well, enriching feelings of community and frivolity around Harpo’s juke joint and the way people come together to spread the news of their town. Sean Mayes is the Musical Director and he conducts six musicians, all identifying people of colour. So much of what makes The Color Purple so formidable and compelling is the music, the band, and the exquisite singing in harmony from every single company member. They are truly goosebump-inducing. Kucheran also does a beautiful job with her costume design, rooting us in a specific time and place, but also showing how fashion can reflect how a woman functions in the world and what kind of agency she has in it.
This production of The Color Purple is perfect. It is heartbreaking, thought provoking, empowering, and, ultimately, triumphant. I’m amazed that Alice Walker wrote this novel in 1982 because the story feels immediate, despite the fact that the play’s first scenes take place over a hundred years ago. Shug Avery points to the colour purple as being a reminder of the beauty in the world, even when it seems to have so much ugliness. Against a distressing contemporary political backdrop, so too is this musical a reminder of the resilience of the human sprit, of the potential for humans to grow and profoundly change, of the power that comes when we begin to focus on believing in ourselves, and that there is beauty in all of us too.
The Color Purple plays at Neptune Theatre (1593 Argyle Street, Halifax) until June 2, 2019. Performances are Tuesday to Friday at 7:30pm and Saturday and Sunday at 2pm & 7:30pm. For tickets please CLICK HERE or call 902-429-7070 (toll-free 1-800-565-7345) or visit the Box Office at 1593 Argyle Street.
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