Pantages Theatre: The Color Purple Pulls at Your Heartstrings

‘The Color Purple’ at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre brings to life Alice Walker’s award winning emotionally riveting novel which was also a beloved motion picture.

I’m sure that many of you have seen the much beloved eighties hit motion picture The Color Purple, starring the legendary Oprah Winfrey and Whoopi Goldberg. I still cry when I think about how poignant and moving that movie was all those years ago, so it’s no surprise that the stage version lives up to the hype of the original story and movie. The 2016 Tony Award winning musical revival of this much beloved story has just arrived for a limited engagement at the Hollywood Pantages thru June 17, 2018 and it takes you on a wonderful emotional journey of highs and lows.

This re-imagined version of The Color Purple is a riveting tale about a young black woman’s epic journey of love, loss and triumph in the American South during the first part of the twentieth century. The show is filled with powerful and grand musical numbers that utilize jazz, gospel, ragtime and blues to tell this young woman’s struggle and the struggle of all women of color during that time frame.

Even though I was familiar with the storyline, what I loved most about musical is that the ‘girl power’ message is particularly relevant and timely during the big ‘Me Too’ upheaval that is happening in our culture today. As modern women are taking back their power from the men who have stolen it or from men who have objectified them for way too many years, the timeless message depicted in the play is even more poignant today. And when larger-than-life Sofia (played by Winfrey in the movie) sings ‘Hell No!’ to express that she ain’t gonna let any man control/walk all over her or when Celie sings ‘Miss Celie’s Pants’  to convey that she now wears the pants in her family, the audience was hooting and hollering to show their support and appreciation of these women owning their power. This timeliness made the show even more enjoyable and relatable.

So if you enjoyed the movie or even if you never saw it, the musical revival of The Color Purple is an emotionally riveting story that pulls at your heartstrings, has you thinking ‘You Go Girl!’ and it also has you tapping your feet all at the same time.