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music and lyrics by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis and Stephen Bray; book by Marsha Norman,

directed by Gary Griffin

Mirvish Productions, Canon Theatre, Toronto

February 11-March 14, 2008

The Color Purple (2004) is an ambitious musical filled with emotion and ideas miles away from the kind of fluff based on defunct TV series or pop groups’ back catalogues that passes for music theatre today.  Based on Alice Walker’s 1982 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and Steven Spielberg’s 1985 film of the same name, the musical deserves credit for raising issues such as incest, infanticide and violence against women while also portraying a lesbian relationship in a positive light.  At the same time, the four creators of the musical are so intent on making their material uplifting and life-enhancing that they don’t linger on any of the disturbing topics they raise but cut quickly to comedy via a chorus of nosy Church Ladies to change the mood.  The show pushes every politically correct button imaginable so that by the end anyone with liberal inclinations will feel less elated than like worn-out BlackBerry.

What makes the show exciting are not the incessant verbal and musical cues that we’re experiencing yet another heartwarming moment, but rather the complete dedication of the cast to its performances.  This feels much more like a sit-down production than the touring show it is.  Kenita R. Miller is radiant as the central character Celie and charts in moving detail her 40-year journey from ignorance and dejection to a realization of her own self-worth.  It’s fairly perverse of the creators to cut short her song of rage against her abusive husband Mister (Rufus Bonds, Jr.) and not to give her a significant solo piece until the very end.  

Walker’s heavily underlined irony is that black men, now no longer slaves, treat their women like slaves.  Livening the background are two women who show Celie that women need not be treated like chattel.  One is the charismatic Angela Robinson as the elegant chanteuse Shug Avery, whom Mister wanted to marry and whose intimacy with Celie teaches Celie what love is.  The other is the wonderfully comic Felicia P. Fields as the hefty Sofia, who fights to get her own way no matter what.  Celie’s sister Nettie (LaToya London), who becomes a missionary, is meant to be her prime inspiration, but the creators have not found a way to integrate her successfully into the action.  Her scenes set in Africa are unnecessary to story as the musical tells it.  If we don’t quite feel uplifted by the end it is because we’ve been prompted to it too many times.  Instead, it is the vibrancy of the dancing, the intensity of the acting and especially the joy of the singing that stay with you long after the final curtain.   

©Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2009-02-12.

Photo: Cast of The Color Purple. ©Paul Kolnik.