It is a joyful noise unlike any other. Signature Theatre’s production of The Color Purple will take you to church— in the most inspiring, healing, and joyous fashion possible. Directed Timothy Douglas, with Musical Direction by Mark G. Meadows, and Choreography by Dane Figueroa Edidi, this rapturous production is stellar beyond compare and leaves the heart bursting with indescribably hope.
It’s a humble set and yet the vivid life that spring forth both from behind the slatted wooden shutters and on the planks itself are worth exalting to the heavens. Scenic Designer Tony Cisek, working in tandem with Lighting Designer Peter Maradudin, has created something deceptively magical. An ordinary, backwoods box that appears to be a step out of time and yet so cottage-core chic that could exist in today’s world, just like so many of the thematic elements from The Color Purple that trickle through modern, everyday life. Cisek even cleverly disguises a representation of the show’s leading character’s blossoming story arch in the set— the effect of which is quite stunning when it is activated. When the wooden slats open to reveal people— often in dilute shadow and silhouette— the effect creates for those scenes are quite striking as well. Cisek and Maradudin strip back their design work to basics but in a refined and polished fashion that augments the storytelling and the phenomenal talent on the stage. The show’s sartorial selection follows in a similar vein, tasteful yet minimalistic in its presentation. Costume Designer Kara Harmon gives us the throwback to a time we wish still didn’t echo loudly in our present-day lives in smocks, frocks, and impoverished simplicity of the working man. Again, Harmon’s work only serves to elevate the production value, without being superfluously flashy or ostentatious in a distracting manner.
The sense of movement and dance in this production is intrinsically tied to the show’s music. There aren’t big, splashy dance numbers with routine choreography; The Color Purple doesn’t lend itself to that sort of theatrics. Choreographer Dane Figueroa Edidi does, however, find moments— like during “Big Dog” where the men and Mister turn their working movements into a staccato and sharp dance routine or during “Brown Betty” where Harpo and the men are given similar stylized movements— to infuse intricately mapped-out movement into the souls of these musical numbers. The juke joint comes to life with dance action during “Push Da Button” and when Miss Celie gets the women to debut her pants during “Miss Celie’s Pants” there is a great deal of excited, thrilling dance-spirited motion happening there as well.
While the story itself is infused thoroughly with darkness, heaviness, and serious topics that could easily weigh down the production, there is never a moment where Director Timothy Douglas doesn’t immediately find a way to allow the joy, the light, the hope, and the healing swell through the company and out in the audience. There is something inexplicably cathartic about the reverberating joy that exists in every living, breathing moment of the show, Douglas has created a theatrical gem with this production. Even when the actions on stage are bleak, cruel, and unimaginably dark, there is this ubiquitous hope and light just lingering in the periphery waiting to burst out in the next moment, shining with radiance through the voices and faces of the cast. All 16 performers in the cast move, sing, and share the joy as one; it’s a positively enlightening experience like no other.
Musically, the show is flawless. Musical Director Mark G. Meadows inspires soulful, holy sounds from the company that send the music and lyrics of Brenda Russell, Allee Willis, and Stephen Bray into a theatrical nirvana. When the Church Ladies (Yewande Odetoyino, Nia Savoy-Dock, Jalisa Williams) get to clucking their way through their gossipy bits its hilarious but Meadows ensures that the stunning talents of Odetoyino, Savoy-Dock, and Williams are heard in equal parts all throughout the performance. The ensemble of men (Keenan McCarter, Stephawn P. Stephens, Tobias A. Young, Sean-Maurice Lynch, Ian Anthony Coleman) are given as many opportunities to vocally shine during ensemble work as the women (including the aforementioned Odetoyino, Savoy-Dock, and Williams, as well as Raquel Jennings and Temídayo Amay) and as a company, numbers like “Mysterious Ways” and “The Color Purple” are disarming and enchanting and loaded with so many powerhouse sounds and emotions that they must be heard and felt to truly be understood.
Commanding attention whether with spoken word or sung song, Frenchie Davis pulls out all the stops when it comes to performing as Sofia. “Hell No” becomes the blazing anthem (of both female characters on-stage and women in the audience) that is belted across both the stage and generations of women needing to feel that all-consuming power she was always meant to have. You get a very different vibe from Nettie (Kaiyla Gross), Celie’s sister, who spends a great deal of the story being kept away from Celie. Gross’ voice is harmonious and glorious whether in featured solo or in duet with Celie in numbers like “Our Prayer” and her narrative feature at the top of Act II, “African Homeland.” While Davis and Gross may be opposing vocal styles and represent different facets of Celie’s life, their stellar vocal prowess and overall stage presence are more than impressive.
A great deal of the show’s darkness festers inside of Mister (Torrey Linder.) Mean-spirited, cruel, and warped in his sense of mind and heart, the character of Mister is not without potential redemption, a balancing act that Torrey Linder masters with ease. Transitioning from the wicked and miserable sod of a man into someone more wholesome is no easy task but it is one that Linder makes look effortless and humanely believable. His vocals are a force of their own accord, particularly during “Big Dog.” While Mister may rule his house like a tyrant, Harpo (Solomon Parker III) is a bouncing ball of energy who couldn’t be any less like his father. Parker III is so lively he hardly ever stops moving. There is a jittering joy that bounces about from his feet to his face, keeping him in a frenetic state of enthusiastic existence. And when he starts singing “Brown Betty” he just sends you. “Any Little Thing” is his back-half number (played opposite the incomparable Frenchie Davis as Sofia) that has the audience grinning and cheering. Both Parker III and Linder leave their marks on the audience, in varying ways respectively; both are integral components to the unmistakable success of this production.
The walking, talking, strutting, singing epitome of sexuality, sensuality, and all things enigmatic, when Shug Avery (Danielle J. Summons) comes to town, you know it! Summons possesses undeniable charisma and a shameless awareness of how to make her beauty, her body, and her sexual prowess speak through the character in a way that elevates the ‘Shug Avery’ component of the story. “Push The Button” is a bombastic conflagration that almost burns the juke joint to the ground. Summons understands the humanity that lives buried deep within the Shug Avery character, bringing those moments to life in as vivacious a fashion as she lights up the dance floor with her moves and her song during the scene at Harpo’s joint. Versatile and stellar, her vocals twine and marry sublimely against Celie’s during “What About Love?” And the audience is treated to the delight of Summons’ singing once more in the titular number in the second act; the sound is heavenly and moving.
Nova Y. Payton is giving the performance of her career as Celie. The transformation from Celie as she is to Celie-the-empowered is so stunning and breathtaking that she fully deserves the unyielding ovation that audience delivers to her after (and in the middle of) the eleven o’clock number “I’m Here.” The sheltered, protected, nervously reclusive Celie is what theatergoers get for the majority of the performance— everything from Payton’s uncertain looks on her face as she tries to resist the urge to rock in her chair while Shug Avery is belting her face off during “Push Da Button” to the way she moves with such hesitancy in most of her scenes— and her commitment and development of that Celie is what makes her transformation so stunning, stellar, and ultimately rewarding. There is a reservedness that Payton forces on her singing voice, really allowing Celie to settle into this quiet existence that is shattered entirely when she belts out “I’m Here.” The confidence that ‘new’ Celie discovers in “Miss Celie’s Pants” is another one of Payton’s impressive moments on stage. From first look to final moment, Payton is living and breathing The Color Purple with every fiber of her being and every ounce of her heart and soul.
Not to be missed; the show that welcomes the end of summer and embraces fall whole-heartedly, there is not another musical theatre production in the DC-metro area so readily doling out the joy and the healing as Signature Theatre’s The Color Purple.
The Color Purple plays through October 9, 2022 in the Max Theatre at Signature Theatre— 4200 Campbell Avenue in Shirlington, VA. For tickets call the box office at (703) 820-9771 or purchase them online.
To read the interview with actor Kaiyla Gross on playing Nettie, click here.
