Celie, the protagonist of The Color Purple , has her second child at age fourteen. The baby daddy is her father. Her babies disappear; for all she knows, he’s killed them. She’s given to a brute who marries her for her dowry, a cow. He whips her and makes her his servant and sex slave. He lists her crimes: “You poor, you black, you ugly, you a woman.”
Like Alice Walker’s 1983 Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winning novel, the 2005 musical version is set in an African American community in rural Georgia in the years 1907-1943. In the drama’s course, new ideas brought to the community by women inspire Celie. Her relationships with these women transform her self-image and behavior. She’s part of a cultural awakening. Even her husband grows.
“It’s one of the best stories I know about the power of the human spirit to sustain such damage and survive; and how that can affect others to turn their lives around,” said Artistic Director Mark Clements, explaining why he choose The Color Purple as the fifth musical ever to be presented on the Milwaukee Repertory Theater’s Powerhouse stage. “It’s not a play about poor black people,” he says, “It’s about a particular post-slavery society that continues to have meaning today. It’s a real exploration of complex issues.” Regarding the positive ending, he notes, “I think we need redemptive stories in the time in which we’re living.”
Those who know Steven Spielberg’s 1985 film adaptation may find the addition of music the greatest difference. Both the musical and the film are necessary condensations of Walker’s novel. As Clements put it, “The brutality and directness of the novel is its own profound experience.” Contemporary songwriters Brenda Russell, Allee Willis and Stephen Bray drew on gospel, blues, jazz, swing and ragtime idioms to create music with immediate appeal that rings true to the play’s time period. The songs offer performers every opportunity to reach deep and give all.
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The cast of 20 adults comes with impressive Broadway and regional theater credits. Celie will be played by Zonya Love; she performed that role on Broadway and stunned audiences two seasons ago in Blues in the Night in the Rep’s Stackner Cabaret. Others from the Blues cast and/or last season’s terrific productions of Ragtime and Ain’t Misbehavin’ have returned for this show. Seven Milwaukee children will perform including Braylen Stevens, wonderful in the Rep’s production of A Raisin in the Sun two seasons back.
Milwaukee native Nathaniel Stampley, a graduate of Whitefish Bay High School and UW-Madison, plays Celie’s terrifying husband. His credits include The Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess and The Color Purple on Broadway and The Lion King on Broadway and London’s West End. He was Porgy in the 2013-14 national tour of the Broadway revival of the Gershwin opera, and Crown in the Skylight Music Theatre’s 2013 production of that masterpiece. His sister Malkia, a Marquette University graduate and rising Milwaukee star, is also cast.
Clements is directing. An artistic director takes a journey with his audience, he says, and he wants to continue the five-year trip that has included the direction of an American musical every season. “Coming from England, it’s been a privilege for me to tell a lot of American stories,” he says. “ The Color Purple is not my story, but I’m interpreting it and I’ve put the right people around me to help it live and breathe.”
Of his all-black cast, he says: “They’re exceptional singers, all-around good performers. They dig deep. Many feel close to this story. Everybody’s there for the right reason. It’s humbling to be in the room with them.” Of the role of Celie: “It’s the equivalent of Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman . It’s epic. You bare all, lay your heart out. It takes bravery.”
Rehearsals began with a public event at Holy Redeemer Church on 35th and Hampton. Leaders from Milwaukee’s African American community and Rep Board Members spoke, emphasizing that The Color Purple raises issues important not only to African Americans but to the city as a whole. Every Sunday matinee will end with a post-show panel discussion at which community experts will address the play’s themes, such as domestic violence prevention, awareness of human trafficking in Milwaukee, strong black women, migration from the South to Milwaukee and stories of family life. “If you want to effect change, you have to do something,” Clements said. “We’re starting to do things really right, instead of half-right with good intentions.”
Performances are Sept. 23-Nov. 2 at the Quadracci Powerhouse Theater, 108 E. Wells St. Call 414-224-9490 or visit milwaukeerep.com for information on times, prices and special events.
