Many of my friends find me hard to please. To them, I report that when Cynthia Erivo, who plays Celie in The Color Purple, finished her Act Two number, “I’m Here”, I shed my normal reserve and joined in the ovation. Small in stature, and possessing a secure but not sizeable voice, Erivo gathered the threads of her performance and turned them into something shimmering. John Doyle’s production, which slims down the musical that premiered on Broadway a decade ago, also makes an overwhelming virtue of the small-scale. Read more…
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/346880b8-9f2b-11e5-beba-5e33e2b79e46.html