LIANNE SCHOENWIESNER, SPOTLIGHTS PHOTOGRAPHY
Nicole Powell and Timothy Ware-Hill co-star in The American Theater Group’s production of “Purlie.”
It is perfectly understandable if, given current political realities, you are finding it increasingly difficult to remain optimistic about the future of our country. But if you are looking for a jolt of hopefulness, consider seeing the musical “Purlie” in its current run at The Hamilton Stage at The Union County Performing Arts Center in Rahway.
The American Theater Group, which is presenting the show in partnership with UCPAC, has chosen a particularly good time to revive a musical that unflinchingly depicts the worst that The United States has had to offer — the horrifically ugly racism and sexism of The Deep South — and still manages to convey a rousingly uplifting message.
“The human spirit knows no boundaries,” declares the play’s main character, smooth-talking, confidently righteous preacher Purlie Victorious Judson (played here by Timothy Ware-Hill, exuding plenty of charisma). “Today’s dream will be tomorrow’s reality, just as sure as today’s reality was yesterday’s dream.”
The story, set in 1950s Georgia, comes from the 1961 play “Purlie Victorious (A Non-Confederate Romp through the Cotton Patch),” written by Ossie Davis. In 1970, the play was adapted into a Tony Award-winning hit musical — by book co-writer Philip Rose, book co-writer and lyricist Peter Udell, and composer Gary Geld — with its titled shortened to just “Purlie.” The original play returned to Broadway in 2023 and 2024, with Leslie Odom Jr. playing the title character, so New Jerseyans who saw it then now have a chance to check out the musical version.
LIANNE SCHOENWIESNER, SPOTLIGHTS PHOTOGRAPHY
Aeja Barrows in “Purlie.”
The musical, directed here by Kenny Ingram, begins with a funeral, presided over by Purlie, and a celebratory group gospel song (“Walk Him Up the Stairs”) that immediately establishes the energy on a high level. The rest of the action is, basically, a flashback, showing how we got to the point of the funeral.
Purlie, who has been on the road, arrives back in town, with the intent of shaking things up. He sees himself not just as a man of the cloth, but as a Civil Rights warrior. “Ain′t gonna promise no chariot ride/No glorious life on that great other side/I got a different message to spread/How ’bout some glory days before we are dead?” he declares in his anthemic song, “Newfangled Preacher Man.”
He is staying with his less idealistic, more practical, somewhat clownish brother Gitlow (Tyson Jennette) and Gitlow’s down-to-earth wife Missy (Nicole Powell), who is more sympathetic than Gitlow to Purlie’s “newfangled” ideas. “Freedom — and a little somethin’ left over. That’ll all I ever wanted, all my life,” she says, with touching sincerity.
Purlie — who has brought the young, innocent, rough-around-the-edges Lutiebelle (Aeja Barrows) with him — has a plan. The wife of abusive plantation owner Ol’ Cap’n Cotchipee (Tom Souhrada) has died and left $500 to Purlie’s aunt, who was her devoted servant. But his aunt died, too, before she could get it. The aunt had a daughter, Bee, who left the plantation to go to college, and she has died as well, but Ol’ Cap’n Cotchipee doesn’t know that. Purlie’s plan is to make Ol’ Cap’n Cotchipee believe that Lutiebelle is Bee, so that he will give her the $500. Then Purlie will use the money to buy a church of his own.
LIANNE SCHOENWIESNER, SPOTLIGHTS PHOTOGRAPHY
From left, Tom Souhrada, Virginia Woodruff, Nicole Powell and Tyson Jennette in “Purlie.”
Ol’ Cap’n Cotchipee is hopelessly, incorrigibly evil. But he has a son, Charlie (Ryan Bronston), who is, as we might say now, “woke,” and a guitar-strumming folksinger to boot. Rounding out the musical’s major characters is Idella (Virginia Woodruff), who works for Ol’ Cap’n Cotchipee, but has taken on so much of the responsibility for raising Charlie that Charlie views her in a motherly way.
Will Purlie succeed in wresting the money from Ol’ Cap’n Cotchipee, and getting his church? We know the answer from the opening, post-flashback scene — he’s preaching in it. But there are some genuine surprises in how we get there. “Purlie” also offers a love story — the attraction between Lutiebelle and Purlie grows stronger as the story progresses — and, most importantly, a sturdy batch of songs, from clever, catchy comic numbers like Gitlow’s “Skinnin’ a Cat” and Ol Cap’n Cothipee’s “Big Fish, Little Fish” to Lutiebelle’s rapturous love song “I Got Love” and “Down Home,” a warm, bluesy duet by Purlie and Missy.
“Purlie” was nominated for five Tonys in 1970, and won two — acting awards for Cleavon Little, as Purlie, and Melba Moore, as Lutiebelle. It lost to the more conventional (by 1970 standards, at least) “Applause” in the Best Musical category.
While its story and its characters are rooted in its past, it was, you could argue, ahead of its time, since its embrace of folk, blues and gospel — plus a glimpse of Dylanesque pop-rock poetry through the Charlie character — can be seen as an example of the way the American musical was changing, circa 1970, and becoming more stylistically open-minded.
The American Theater Group and The Union County Performing Arts Center will present “Purlie” at UCPAC’S Hamilton Stage in Rahway through March 23. Visit americantheatergroup.org.
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