Sensational performances and an intimate theatrical setting make Greenway Arts Alliance’s The Color Purple an exciting addition to the L.A. holiday scene if not as spectacular a revival as the musical’s 2012 99-seat L.A. debut.

 Based on Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and its Steven Spielberg-directed film adaptation, the 2005 Broadway smash takes us on one African-American woman’s journey out of poverty and misery during the first half of the 20th Century.

Filled with songs, laughter, and tears, The Color Purple benefits from Marsha Norman’s artful book**, which manages to compact Walker’s 300-page epistolary novel with a minimum of dialog, the better to spotlight its over two dozen songs—music and lyrics by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis, and Stephen Bray—which run the gamut from gospel to R&B to blues to romantic ballads and back.

Walker’s story and Norman’s book introduce us to the same cast of characters we fell in love with in the 1985 movie, now given new resonance by the addition of song and dance.

 Among those our plucky heroine encounters on the way to adulthood are Mister (Aaron Braxton), the intimidating farmer who settles for marriage with Celie when her father refuses to let him wed Celie’s younger, prettier sister Nettie (Elizabeth Adabale)—and then goes on to make his young wife’s existence a living hell.

There’s also Mister’s longtime lover Shug Avery (April Nixon), the glamorous juke joint chanteuse who awakens Celie to her own beauty, self-worth, and same-sex desires.

Meanwhile, the mountainous Sofia (Dominique Kent) earns Celie’s respect by proving via her marriage to Mister’s son Harpo (Jeremy Whatley) that a woman can fight back and win.

And then there’s Squeak (Rachel Sarah Mount), the Minnie Mouse-voiced waitress who becomes Sofia’s rival for Harpo’s affections.

Last but not least are the church ladies and field hands and night club habitués and others who make up Celie’s world from ages fourteen to fifty-four brought to life by the eight triple-threats first introduced to us in the musical’s infectiously hummable, clappable full-cast opening number “Mysterious Ways.”

Director-choreographer Jeffrey Polk has elicited one memorable performance after another beginning with radiant leading lady Gabrielle Jackson, who takes Celie from subservient “ugly duckling” to gloriously independent swanhood and brings down the house with a stunningly sung “I’m Here.”

Making it a fabulous two in a row, Kent follows Dreamgirls’ Effie with the similarly outspoken (and not to be outsung) Sofia, reaching the rafters with a defiant “Hell No!” and igniting plenty of sexual sparks opposite the excellent Jeremy Whatley’s henpecked but thoroughly smitten Harpo.

 Broadway’s Nixon burns up the stage as a seductively sensual Shug, who can set the house afire with “Push Da Button” and bring an audience (and Celie) to tears with “Too Beautiful For Words.”

Following her breakout performance as “Sister” Deloris Van Cartier, Adabale does a warm and winning 180-degree turn as Celie’s beloved Nettie, and Mount steals every scene she’s in as the sassy, appropriately named Squeak.

The human monstrosity that is Mister gives a standout Braxton the chance to strut his #meetoo-provoking stuff, making what the future just might have in store for him all the more touching and redemptive.

The cluck-clucking Church Ladies—Carol Dennis (recreating the role of Soloist she originated on Broadway), Lynette DuPree, Mariah Strickland, and Jacqueline Schofield—are a joy to behold and a delight to the ears, and ensemble members Ernest Carter, Otis Easter, Justyn Malik, and Charles McCoy deliver the goods in assorted cameos throughout.

Greenway Arts Alliance’s 2018 revival does require some expectation adjustment for audience members who caught Celebration Theatre’s Ovation Awards-sweeping intimate staging** six years ago, based as it is on the 2015 revival script.

 Scenic designer Christopher Scott Murillo gives the production a nicely conceived and executed churchlike set, but per author’s revival notes, there is no distinguishing between the musical’s multiple locales, e.g. between a church and a juke joint, which can be confusing.

Dana Rebecca Woods’ pastel-hued costumes (again part of the reconceived revival) are perfectly fine but limited in number, making it difficult at times to distinguish between characters played by the same performer.

In particular, costuming in the Act Two-opening fantasia “African Homeland” suffers by comparison to the Celebration’s, and choreography seems considerably scaled down in this and other production numbers.

Finally, it’s hard to track the musical’s time shifts (again part of the revival concept), and the lack of a song list proves frustrating.

On the plus side, lighting designer Azra King-Abadi casts a warm glow over the entire production (and goes appropriately purple when needed) and Julie Ferrin’s sound design could not be more expert in mixing amped vocals and the production’s electrifying five-piece onstage band* under Patrick Gandy’s ace musical direction.

Jennifer Palumbo is stage manager. Tiffany Moon is producing director.

 For those who’ve only experienced The Color Purple on a massive proscenium stage seated way back in row Z, its Greenway Arts Alliance revival will prove a heart-touching eye-opener, just one reason its arrival at the Greenway Court Theatre is a holiday-season treat.

*Gandy, Dylan Gorenberg, Kerry Griffin, Ryo Okumoto, and Yafeu Tyhimba
**Norman’s revised 2015 revival book differs from the original seen at Celebration Theatre in 2012

Greenway Court Theatre, 544 N. Fairfax Blvd., Los Angeles.
www.greenwaycourttheatre.org

–Steven Stanley
November 10, 2018
Photos: Darrett Sanders

Tags: Alice Walker, Allee Willis, Brenda Russell, Greenway Court Theatre, Los Angeles Theater Review, Marsha Norman, Stephen Bray