More stories

  • in

    ‘Purlie Victorious’ Review: Leslie Odom Jr. Shines in Revival

    Ossie Davis’s 1961 play is no period piece, as a blazing and hilarious revival starring Leslie Odom Jr. testifies.Two years before he made his “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington in 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. attended the 100th performance of “Purlie Victorious” at the Cort Theater on Broadway. He knew the playwright, Ossie Davis, and his wife, Ruby Dee, from their work in the civil rights movement.Now the couple were starring in Davis’s raucous comedy about a stem-winding Black preacher from Georgia. It would not have been lost on the stem-winding King, likewise from Georgia, that he and “Purlie Victorious” had something in common. They were, after all, in the same fight against racism — in the play’s case by laughing it to death.And yet, did it die? If it did, why are we still laughing?The “Purlie Victorious” that opened on Wednesday at the Music Box — unaccountably its first Broadway revival — is every bit as scathingly funny as the 1961 reviews said it was. (In The New York Times, Howard Taubman called it “exhilarating,” “uninhibited” and “uproarious,” all in the first three paragraphs.) But even though times have surely changed — for one thing, the Cort Theater is now the James Earl Jones — everything dark in the play is still dark, and the lightness no less necessary. There’s a reason the setting, however old-timey it may appear on the surface, is still called “the recent past.”Kenny Leon’s thrillingly broad and warp-speed production aims to keep us in both time zones at once. To do so he begins on a note of contemporary welcome as the actors walk onstage companionably to don the jackets and aprons they’ll wear in the play, as if they’d just come from the street. Among them, Leslie Odom Jr. instantly stands out, not just for the spiffy suit he’s wearing (the terrific costumes are by Emilio Sosa) but also for his wolfish impatience to get going. His Purlie, we sense, will be more than a preacher: He will be a prosecutor.Two thefts are in his sights. One is perhaps a petty larceny: The $500 left to Purlie’s Aunt Henrietta by the white woman in whose home she worked has not come rightfully into his hands. Instead, with Henrietta and her daughter, Cousin Bee, both dead, the sum has been waylaid by Ol’ Cap’n Cotchipee, the owner of the cotton plantation on which Purlie grew up with his brother, Gitlow (Billy Eugene Jones). Though a pittance to the rich Ol’ Cap’n (Jay O. Sanders), the $500 is a fortune to Purlie, who plans to use it to buy and restore Big Bethel church, where his grandfather once preached. He wants his inheritance in both senses, the cash and the pulpit.Odom carries the play’s weight as it shifts genres, revealing further layers of character, while Young proves to be a daring comedian unafraid to go as far as the part takes her, our critic writes.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe other theft, at the heart of the play’s power and yet also its comedy, is much larger: the theft of the freedom of generations of Black Americans.It was a practical yet risky choice to weld the outrage over one to the farce of the other. And make no mistake, starting with the subtitle (“A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch”), Davis’s farce is full-throttle, blending lowbrow physical humor straight out of vaudeville with traditions of Black satire and classic social comedy like “Pygmalion.” So when Purlie recruits “a common scullion” named Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins to impersonate the college-educated Bee and claim the inheritance, you know something will go vastly wrong. Indeed, bedazzled by the preacher’s attention and overwhelmed by the job, Lutiebelle starts to improvise, leading the plan cartoonishly awry.Originally played by Dee, and now by Kara Young, Lutiebelle is a rich creation, sweet and hungry, down-home and dirty. Young, a two-time Tony nominee known mostly for dramatic roles (“Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven,” “The New Englanders,” “All the Natalie Portmans”), is also a daring comedian, finding in Lutiebelle a cross between Lucille Ball and Moms Mabley. That she is not afraid to go as far as the part can take her — with a gawky pigeon-toed gait and hilariously lustful line readings in a taffy-pulled Southern accent — is a sign of the freedom the play gives her (and everyone else) to represent a character instead of a race.As a result, some touchy old stereotypes, appropriated by whites and perverted as minstrelsy, are reclaimed and reframed. Gitlow’s shucking and jiving is, in Jones’s performance, very clearly a performance itself: a way of getting around the obtuseness of overlords. His wife, Missy, played by Heather Alicia Simms, turns classic one-dimensional stage sass into complicated warmth. Vanessa Bell Calloway’s Idella, a cook who works for Ol’ Cap’n and might in other contexts be framed as a Mammy figure, here has a freedom fighter’s acuity. And even Ol’ Cap’n himself, the snarling villain of the piece, is taken down gently: “Put kindness in your fingers,” Purlie instructs a pallbearer. “He was a man — despite his own example.”But it’s Odom who carries the play’s weight as it shifts from genre to genre and reveals further layers of character. Part of the freedom Davis took for himself, and that Leon emphasizes in his staging, is the right to be many things at once, not all of them reputable.Odom, with the angry intensity of his Burr from “Hamilton,” does not shy from Purlie’s scoundrelly side, his willingness to lie, even to loved ones, as a means of putting down a marker on eventual truth. And yet when it comes time to preach, watch out. The way he winds speeches into sermons and sermons nearly into songs makes it seem natural that “Purlie Victorious,” written partly in blank verse, would be turned into a musical. It nearly was one already.Was it also a loving dig at the great orator himself? Davis disagreed with King about nonviolence but could hardly dispute his silver-tongued leadership. And in “Purlie” he seemed to give Kingism a chance. After mercilessly mocking the trope of the Great White Savior, he allows Charlie Cotchipee, the weakling son of Ol’ Cap’n — a role played by Alan Alda in 1961 and Noah Robbins now — to save the day and redeem his race.“We still need togetherness; we still need each otherness,” Purlie preaches in the final, forgiving moments of this necessary revival, as Derek McLane’s set undergoes a miraculous transformation from shack to temple. And then Purlie adds, “Do what you can for the white folks.”Speaking as one, they did.Purlie VictoriousThrough Jan. 7 at the Music Box, Manhattan; purlievictorious.com. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. More

  • in

    ‘Purlie Victorious’: Ossie Davis’s ‘Gospel to Humanity’ Returns to Broadway

    The stars Leslie Odom Jr. and Kara Young and the director Kenny Leon discuss the revival, and why its satirical take on racism is still so timely.Ossie Davis’s satirical play “Purlie Victorious” opened at the Cort Theater in September 1961 with Davis as the charismatic preacher Purlie Victorious Judson and Ruby Dee, his artistic collaborator and wife, playing Purlie’s green but soon-to-be-wise sidekick, Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins. Six decades later, Leslie Odom Jr. (“Hamilton”) and Kara Young (“Clyde’s,” “Cost of Living”) are stepping into those roles in the play’s first Broadway revival, directed by Kenny Leon at the Music Box Theater.Set in the 1940s on a plantation in the segregated South, the story follows Purlie’s return home to Georgia to claim a $500 inheritance, which he wants to use to buy and integrate the local church. To prevent Cap’n Cotchipee, the white plantation owner, from usurping his family’s birthright, Purlie has to trick Cotchipee — a plan that will also involve recruiting the unsuspecting Lutiebelle to stand in for his recently deceased Cousin Bee, who is the rightful inheritor of the money. In other words, Purlie’s strategy hinges on Cotchipee’s inability to differentiate one Black woman from another, and in so doing, the play uses comedy to expose racism as absurd, arbitrary and detrimental to Black life.That pointed critique of racism, and Davis’s clever use of language, is why the play was so well received. “Although his good humor never falters,” the Times critic Howard Taubman wrote at the time, Davis “has made his play the vehicle for a powerful and passionate sermon.” It ran for nearly a year, and the activists W.E.B. Du Bois, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X all saw it. A film adaptation, “Gone Are the Days!,” followed in 1963, and then came the 1970 Broadway musical, “Purlie.”Davis and Dee’s children, Nora Davis Day, Guy Davis and Hasna Muhammad, remember watching all of those versions. The siblings, who are the executors of their parents’ estate, had personal reasons for reviving the play. “It resonates with us because it is my dad’s specific language,” said Guy Davis, who composed the revival’s incidental music. “My sisters and I just wanted to revisit that part of our lives.”“This soars as a true work of art,” said Kenny Leon, the show’s director. “Everything about being American, definitely about being Black in America, you can find in his play.”Elias Williams for The New York Times“Purlie Victorious” itself was inspired by Davis’s childhood. “Dad grew up in the deepest part of Georgia, and had cause to be irate about the conditions there,” Day recalled. “He tried to write a play that was full of anger, vitriol, and righteousness, but it just didn’t work until he began to look at it and laugh and say, ‘This is ridiculous, that one group of people feels like they can control and own other people.’”But Dee had reservations about Davis’s use of satire.“She didn’t like it,” Muhammad said. “She thought it was stereotypical. How could he have these characters? And then he read it aloud to her, and then she was laughing and realized the power of the language and the value of the piece.”Now Leon, Odom and Young say they are excited to share a work that they consider a classic with new audiences. During an interview last month before a rehearsal, they discussed their history with the play, the power of its satire and what it means to stage this production today. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.The Davis-Dee children, from left: Guy Davis, Nora Davis Day and Hasna Muhammad, who together helped bring the revival to Broadway.Elias Williams for The New York TimesHow did this production come about?KENNY LEON Our producer Jeffrey Richards, whose mom [Helen Stern Richards] was the original company manager of the play and the general manager of the musical, began talking to me about this seven years ago. But I also spent time with Ossie and Ruby when they came to the rehearsals for my first Broadway show, “A Raisin in the Sun” [in 2004]. When Jeffrey approached me about possibly doing this on Broadway, I said, “I’m your guy,” because I love Ossie Davis. And I love this piece. I directed the musical [in 2008 at the Fox Theater in Atlanta]. It’s an exciting play and an outrageous comedy that is somewhere between rage and hope.LESLIE ODOM Somebody had shoved the script in my hand as a young theater student. It was one of those plays that you should look at for an audition or a scene study class. The musical was also done in Philly when I was a kid, at the Freedom Theater, where I started acting as a 13-year-old.LEON But Leslie is what made this production a possibility — being that anchor. I found out that he always loved the play, so to have him want to be in it and produce it with Jeffrey Richards made it a reality. KARA YOUNG I was really surprised that Ossie Davis wrote a play like this. At that time, and this is just my imagination, because “A Raisin in the Sun” was so prolific, he really had the chance to change the world and the way that people thought about Black life. [Dee starred in the original 1959 Broadway production with Davis joining the cast later that year.] He dissected the absurdity of the social and racial structures of this world, and America in particular, and the legacy of slavery in this country. It is Ossie’s gospel to humanity. There are just so many amazing lines here that are the voices of a million people and a million spirits.LEON I don’t want people to shortchange Ossie Davis’s craftsmanship and his writing an outrageous comedy that embraced different styles, like vaudeville, broad comedy, and a little bit of the drama from “A Raisin in the Sun.” Look at this penmanship, poetry, movement and song. Many times, I think for an African American work, they have a different set of rules to gauge its greatness. But this soars as a true work of art.In addition to Young and Odom Jr., the cast includes Vanessa Bell Calloway, far left, and Heather Alicia Simms, far right. Elias Williams for The New York TimesHow do you think it will land at this moment?ODOM I’m curious, too. When I think about the last incredible experience I had in this town with a piece of work [“Hamilton”], and I think that if that piece of work had been written five years before, it might not have done the thing. So, I am excited to discover why now, and I am along for the ride.YOUNG I feel like the timing is almost perfect.LEON We were talking earlier about how every generation has to fight for democracy. We have to fight for true freedom and beauty, and what better time to be reminded of that than right now as we engage in the 2024 election? As we think about those things that Ossie Davis talks about, we got to stay in truth.YOUNG And remember our history.LEON What’s that line Purlie says? “Give us a piece of the Constitution.”ODOM “We want our cut of the Constitution and we want it now: and not with no little teaspoon, white folks. Throw it at us with a shovel.”How do you balance the play’s humor and its politics?ODOM It’s a romp. It’s a real hoot. We’re having a ball. As joyful and as light-filled as this experience is, he realized it was too painful to ask an audience to sit through it. It’s already an act of great generosity and grace that he decided to put it together in this way. He wanted us to be able to witness these people that he grew up with, this country that he grew up in, this farm that he knew so well, but he wanted you to be able to stand it and to tolerate it. LEON We’re telling it in a joyous way and dealing with some real stuff.YOUNG There are just so many gems about the violence of our just existing. There is a line I said the other day that reminds me of gentrification. Lutiebelle says, “The whole thing was a trip to get you out of the house.” I’m a Harlemite, and I’ve been feeling the violence of gentrification for years. I know that’s not what the play is about, but these things are dropped in the story, and because it is so dramaturgically sound, they can live on their own.LEON That’s so beautiful because that, to me, is what artists are supposed to do. We’re supposed to revisit the work from the previous generation and say, “How does that relate to me now?” I treat revivals like they’re new plays. Everything about being American, definitely about being Black in America, you can find in his play.Is that why you changed the structure from three to two acts, without an intermission?LEON I read plays five times to inform me of what I will do with them. After the fifth reading, I came away with the idea that it is about getting to that last page and scene. And getting to that last scene meant it’s about the rhythm of what’s happening onstage and people in the audience not thinking about time. I don’t want the outside world to come in. I just want them to get lost in this world.Kara and Leslie, what is it like to invoke the spirit of Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis onstage?YOUNG I’m a huge fan of Ruby, oddly also as a Harlemite. Ruby and Ossie are great examples of what it means to be organizers and activists and to be a force of change. But what it means to step into a role that Ruby Dee originated, I can’t quite put that into language. But this is also a role about a young woman and her journey, about finding a sense of self and her importance in the world for the first time and standing in that. It feels like a very universal story for a Black girl.ODOM The thing about these drama schools around the country is that they train you in the classics. My training prepared me for this. But I think my responsibility as an artist is to choose the projects that I’m a part of thoughtfully, collaborate with people that I respect, and work on things at the highest level. That’s what I’m supposed to be doing. It takes a while to get there. We’re doing this play as written in 1961, but people will be so surprised at how hip it is and how much it stands up. The more we learn, the more we build trust with Mr. Davis and his words. It rises to support us. How do you want people to feel after leaving “Purlie Victorious”?LEON That this feels like a new play. I think that’s what Ossie would want: us to introduce this to live human beings whose lives are affected daily.YOUNG The irony of racism. When you really break it down, the construct of racism is just really absurd. But, even in those power structures, these characters need each other. We need each other.ODOM Recently, I read Clint Smith’s book “How the Word Is Passed.” He paints a more honest picture of chattel slavery and the truth of that in this country. “Nostalgia is a fantasy about the past using no facts,” he says. “And somewhere in between is memory, which is kind of this blend of history and a little bit of emotion.” Man, did that strike me. I want this “Purlie” to feel like a memory. I hope that it feels like the facts need emotion. More

  • in

    Leslie Odom Jr. Plans Return to Broadway in ‘Purlie Victorious’

    Kenny Leon will direct the revival of Ossie Davis’s 1961 play, which is expected to run this summer at an unspecified Broadway theater.Leslie Odom Jr., who won a Tony Award for his breakout performance as Aaron Burr in “Hamilton,” plans to return to Broadway this summer to star in, and co-produce, a revival of a 1961 comedy about a preacher trying to acquire a church in his hometown while challenging a local segregationist.The play, “Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch,” was written by Ossie Davis, the actor and civil rights activist, who also starred in the original Broadway production alongside his wife and frequent collaborator, Ruby Dee. (The original cast also featured Alan Alda.) The play was quickly adapted into a movie, called “Gone Are the Days!,” and then into a musical, simply titled “Purlie.”The revival will be directed by Kenny Leon, who has had a lot on his plate lately: He directed this season’s Broadway runs of “Topdog/Underdog” and “Ohio State Murders,” and is directing an Off Broadway production of “King James” (about LeBron James fandom) this spring and “Hamlet” at Free Shakespeare in the Park this summer.“Purlie Victorious” is a satire of Southern stereotypes, and both Leon and Odom said they believe it will resonate with contemporary audiences. “It explores the truth in a way that we know and we can receive it,” Leon said. “To me, when I read this play, I don’t feel paralyzed, I feel joyous, and I say, ‘What can I do to make our country better?’”Odom, who gave his daughter the middle name Ruby after Ruby Dee, said he has been interested in the play for some time. “First and foremost, we want to make a kick-ass, entertaining, joyful revival production of this great play,” he said. “We want to make a seminal production of ‘Purlie Victorious,’ this thing that hasn’t been seen on Broadway for decades and that was so important to Mr. Davis.”In the years since “Hamilton,” Odom has had a thriving film and television career, with significant roles in “One Night in Miami” and “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” a guest starring role in “Abbott Elementary,” and he is now in Atlanta, filming a sequel to “The Exorcist.” Before committing to “Purlie Victorious,” which will be his first professional stage play, Odom said he test-drove the material, to reassure himself that it would still work, and that he felt comfortable in the role.“We did a small private reading just to begin the exploration, and what we found is that, absolutely, it holds up,” he said in a telephone interview. “Mr. Davis left us a road map to all the moments of magic that I’m looking for in this play, and it really is a matter of us committing this text to memory and letting it have its way with us.”The revival’s lead producer is Jeffrey Richards. The production said in a statement Wednesday that the revival would begin performances “in late summer 2023” at an unspecified Broadway theater. More