Wow, what a difference a more-focused production makes. When the musical adaptation of Alice Walker’s searing story of abuse and deliverance, The Color Purple, premiered on Broadway in 2005, its rewards were compromised by the overblown production. Ten years later, director John Doyle and an electric cast assembled around transcendent British newcomer Cynthia Erivo as Celie have given the show a deep — and deeply satisfying — rethink. This revelatory overhaul is characterized by its grace, restraint and soaring spirituality, peeling back the excess to expose the life-affirming material’s molten emotional core. It remakes a patchy musical as a thrilling one. Read more…
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/jennifer-hudson-color-purple-theater-847846