What: The Color Purple
Where: Papemill Playhouse
22 Brookside Drive
Milburn, NJ
Who: Recommended for Ages 10 and Up
When: Through October 21, 2018
Mom's view: The Color Purple is a musical which is based on the Alice Walker book, which was the source of the 1985 movie. The show was also on Broadway twice most recently in a run that ended just last year. The movie and both incarnations of the show were all nominated for numerous awards. LaChanze in the original show, and Cynthia Ervio, in the revival, both won Tonys in the lead role of Celie. The revivial also won a Tony for Best Revival of a Musical. The show is very timely. It is about a woman who is always under the thumb of men first her father and then her abusive husband until she finally finds her power and comes into her own. In fact, there are a trio of strong woman in the show. In addition to Celie there is Sofia, the wife of Mister's son and Shug Avery, Mister's true love who comes to be very special to Celie as well. Adrianna Hicks did a nice job in the role of Celie. Her final number "I'm Here" was particularly touching. Carrie Compere was also a real standout in her role as the fierce Sophia. Over all, the rest of the cast was pretty good. The singing voices were good too, but the songs were not that memorable except for the title number and the aforementioned powerhouse final number for Celie, "I'm Here." The show had very little set just a bunch of chairs that were moved around on the stage to set the scene. Because of that and the fact that the show moved fairly quickly from scene to scene, it was hard to follow what was going on in the show at times especially if you were unfamiliar with the book, show and/or movie. However, the show is still worth seeing for its timeliness and for its powerful female performances.
For more about The Color Purple or to purchase tickets, visit https://papermill.org/show/the-color-purple.
Photo credits: All The Color Purple production photos by Jerry Dalia.
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