Broadway Las Vegas debut soars with ‘Color Purple’

Phoenix Entertainment's "The Color Purple," now at The Smith Center for the Performing Arts, is a non-union production, yet I can't remember a single performance that felt anything less than top-notch professional.

This musicalized version of Alice Walker's celebrated novel may have its problems, but it's full-throttle entertainment. The glorious singing voices of the 19-member cast wash over you like waves.

Scriptwriter Marsha Norman gives the sometimes intense plot an often light-hearted, outline feel. She reinterprets the material so that it fits snugly into the musical comedy/drama format. I'd hate for anyone to go away from this show thinking this is all there is to Walker, but still, as a fun musical, it's enough.

The plot, as I assume anyone who's recently sat through an English class knows, follows the adventures in rural Georgia from 1909 to 1949 of Celie, a simple black girl frequently abused and abandoned. The play is her journey to self-acceptance and forgiveness. Along the way, she's enriched by a slew of oddballs who make her story a feminist Oz tale.

What's curious is that despite the sometimes appropriately cartoonish broad characters, director Gary Griffin succeeds in getting us to see everyone as people. We laugh a lot, but when lovers reunite, or siblings meet their mother for the first time, or a comically domineering woman gets beaten, we take the events seriously.

As Celie, Ashley Ware is a godsend. When you first see her, she looks so frail and uncertain that you can't imagine how she's going to carry a major musical. But something magical happens when she begins to see herself as a beautiful woman. Her body loses its weariness, her face glows with contentment. Ware understands Celie's transformation. Without her wide-ranging acting ability (and that overwhelming singing sound that seems to come out of nowhere from her tiny body) this show obviously couldn't succeed.

Deidra Grace is irresistible as a good-hearted woman who doesn't mind, when necessary, throwing her considerable weight around. And Dayna Marie Quincy, as Celie's often missing sister, is sweetly unaffected. She's moving without being maudlin.

There are many more cast members worthy of being singled out, but I'll have to settle for an all-encompassing salute.

The score, by three pop writers, sounds too much like pop, with monotonous, bring-down-the-house spirituals, and lyrics that get smothered in artificial uplift. During most of the tender songs, the show seems on automatic pilot. But Donald Byrd's playful, sensual choreography makes you look forward to the big numbers . John Lee Beatty's set is quiet, simple and enormously effective. He always gives us something enticing to look at, without calling attention to his ingenuity.

The script is too calculated, too touchy-feely for me, especially during the last 20 minutes. But it's easy to rave about the joy of this production. It made me go home and enjoy the original Broadway cast recording, even though I hate the original Broadway cast recording.

Anthony Del Valle can be reached at vegastheaterchat@aol.com. You can write him c/o Las Vegas Review-Journal, P.O. Box 70, Las Vegas, NV 89125.