Resurrecting ‘Purlie’

WHATEVER happened to the black Broadway musical? In the 1970s and 1980s, there were a slew of shows that featured African Americans singing and dancing: “Bubblin’ Brown Sugar,” “Further Mo’,” “Mama, I Want to Sing (I and II),” “The Wiz,” “Dreamgirls,” “Eubie,” “Ain’t Misbehavin’ ” and more. Sometimes there were as many as five or six shows a season, and it wasn’t unusual for a black musical to run profitably for years.

Sheldon Epps, artistic director of the Pasadena Playhouse -- where he’s directing a revival of “Purlie” -- was part of that wave. Epps’ breakthrough show, “Blues in the Night,” opened in 1983, a musical revue featuring songs by Bessie Smith, Duke Ellington, Harold Arlen and others, sung by four archetypal characters living in a rundown Chicago hotel in the 1930s. His 1996 “Play On!” transposed Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” to Swing-era Harlem, set to a score of Ellington songs.

Yet by the time “Play On!” was revived at the Playhouse in 1999, the days of many black musicals on Broadway had come and gone. Indeed, in recent years, most jobs for African American musical performers have been found not in so-called black musicals but in “The Lion King” and “Aida.”

Today there are so few black plays being produced in New York that you’re likely to find black actors in revivals of shows traditionally cast with white performers, such as the recently closed “On Golden Pond,” starring James Earl Jones, or “Julius Caesar” with Denzel Washington. What’s more, those shows were star vehicles and likely wouldn’t have been done absent a marquee name.

If the recent shuttering of ethnic-specific development labs at regional theaters such as the Taper weren’t proof enough, Broadway’s disinterest in black musicals could be seen as yet one more indication that the heyday of ‘90s multiculturalism -- the arts world’s version of affirmative action -- is long gone.

Of course, it’s also about the money: Most of those with the power to bring a show to New York don’t seem to think there are dollars to be made. “There is a myth that the black audience won’t come to see black shows on Broadway -- or that they won’t come to Broadway shows, period -- and that the white audience is uncomfortable seeing black shows on Broadway,” Epps says.

In addition, “There is not a black person who owns a theater on Broadway or is involved with running any of the major corporations now that are so responsible for producing what gets on Broadway.”

In theory, Epps’ revival of “Purlie” could make a difference, especially if it makes it all the way to the, ahem, Great White Way. Yet part of what makes that a longshot is the fare that dominates the New York boards.

Today’s conservative climate is dominated by remakes, revivals and retreads, from the high jinks and camp humor of “The Producers,” “Spamalot” and “Hairspray” to the endless stream of jukebox musicals seeking to cash in on pop songwriters. But notably absent from this list are revivals of black musicals.

Even some of the key members of “Purlie’s” creative team had their doubts going in. “When Sheldon called me for this and I read the script, I wasn’t really crazy about it,” says Ronald “Rahn” Coleman, who served as Epps’ musical director on “Play On!” and “Blues in the Night.” “I just told him: ‘You gotta be crazy.’ It was almost like somebody calling me to arrange music for Lawrence Welk.”

Undeterred, Epps’ conviction stemmed from a personal connection to the material and an abiding faith in “Purlie’s” relevance. “People say, ‘Why do the show again?’ It’s because those issues have not passed us,” he says. “Racism is less overt than it was, but it still exists. The lack of ownership of big businesses by black people is still with us. The need to feel good about being black is still with us. The need to define yourself, define your goals, know what you want and don’t let the racism in America stop you from getting them is still very much with us.

“I am the only black artistic director of a major theater in America right now, since George C. Wolfe resigned,” from the New York Public Theater. “That’s the clearest and most personal example I can give you. That’s astounding to me. I don’t say that with any pride. I say that with a great deal of shock and awe.”

The proliferation of black musicals in the ‘70s and ‘80s was a mixed blessing. Yes, there was work for African American performers. But the majority of those musicals still kept these artists down on the proverbial farm, singin’ and dancin’ in period pieces -- many set in the 1920s to 1940s -- that didn’t go near contemporary problems. White audiences were accustomed to seeing black people sing and dance, so the theory goes, making these shows comfortable and, in a word, nonthreatening.

Writing about a 1990 revival of the George and Ira Gershwin musical “Oh, Kay!,” set in jazz-age Harlem and featuring an all-black cast, then-New York Times critic Frank Rich likened the production to a minstrel show and rued “stereotypes that are less redolent of the Cotton Club than of ‘Amos ‘n’ Andy.’ ”

What’s makes “Purlie” different is that it’s meant not merely as fun but as social critique. Set in the antebellum South, “Purlie” has music by Gary Geld, lyrics by Peter Udell, and a book by Ossie Davis, Udell and Philip Rose. It tells the story of a town where white racist plantation owner Ol’ Cap’n Cotchipee (Lyle Kanouse) effectively owns everyone and everything in sight. Along comes the title character, a slick-talking, self-proclaimed preacher with a cockeyed scheme to get the deed to a barn that he’ll turn into a church and empower the townspeople in the process.

“Purlie” is based on Davis’ 1961 play, “Purlie Victorious.” The book of the musical is taken almost verbatim from Davis’ play, a mix of farcical satire and serious politics that Epps argues was ahead of its time.

“When Ossie wrote the play in 1961, it was very cutting-edge,” he says. “This is a play that talked about black ownership, being proud of being black, long before anybody ever said, ‘Black is Beautiful.’ ”

According to Davis’ widow, Ruby Dee, the actress for whom Davis wrote the leading female role of Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins (played here by Paulette Ivory), the play started out as a serious drama. But Davis soon changed course, in part because of unexpected influences.

At the time Davis was writing the play, Davis and Dee were working with an off-Broadway company that included many victims of McCarthyism, in “The World of Sholom Aleichem.” “Ossie worked as a stage manager,” Dee recalls. “Looking at the humor of Eastern Europe, there was something in it that appealed to him, and that’s when he changed the tenor of ‘Purlie.’

“He started it as a serious piece. Then he started to laugh, to see that there was something about racism that was maddeningly funny and stupid. He saw there was this kinship between the people of the shtetl and the people of the ghettos of the world, the capacity to take something dreadful and show the ridiculousness of prejudice and feelings of superiority, as did Sholom Aleichem.”

“He’s full of this kind of devilish fun,” says Dee, who speaks of her husband in the present tense, even though he died in February. “He doesn’t wag his finger, he throws back his head and laughs.”

On the serious side, Epps sees a reflection of the politics of the civil rights movement. “Purlie, I think, is really modeled on Malcolm X,” he says. “In an odd way, the character Gitlow is a little bit Martin Luther King. And the debate that goes on between them is not ‘Shall we do this?’ or ‘Shall we not do this?’ but ‘How are we going to do it?’ ”

Epps was an acting student at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh when he saw the original 1970 Broadway production of “Purlie,” which ran for almost 700 performances and won Tony Awards for leads Cleavon Little and Melba Moore.

“That has always stayed in my memory as just one of the most exciting experiences of my young theatergoing,” Epps says.

In one way, the connection was blatantly personal. “My father’s a preacher,” he says. “Most Sunday mornings of my childhood, I was at a church service at my father’s church, Bel-Vue Community Church on East 118th Street in Los Angeles. So every Sunday, I watched my father deliver a sermon.

“There’s certainly a connection for me personally with a show that is about a ‘newfangled preacher man,’ a man -- though in the case of the play, the character is slightly more of a con artist than my father ever was -- who’s doing something for the sake of his community, to have justice, to fight racism, to bring this community that has been downtrodden a sense of ownership and pride by getting this barn which will then be converted to a church.”

In fact, Epps’ father did the same thing. “He started his church in a garage with four or five people at the first church service,” says the director. “And it became one of the biggest black congregations west of the Mississippi River before he left it.”

Epps’ 1970 theatergoing experience was professionally formative as well. “I certainly learned watching that performance in 1970 about the power of the black performer, and that special theatrical energy that you can get from black musical performers in particular,” he says.

Several years ago, Epps was approached by a New York commercial producer who was interested in having him stage a production of “Purlie Victorious.” That production didn’t end up happening, but it reawakened Epps’ interest in the musical.

As is often the case with musicals, the obstacle was money. “Frankly, we wouldn’t be able to do it without a co-producer,” says Epps. The show will be staged at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago in the fall.

Epps directed a concert reading of “Purlie” as part of the Encores! series in New York in March. And although the New York Times found the production “plodding,” it acknowledged that “Playing with the idea of folksy black cotton-pickers down in Dixie must in 1970 have seemed like playing with napalm. But Mr. Davis knew what he was doing.”

It’s tricky business, trying to strike an effective balance between mere stereotypes and a critique of stereotypes. “It is a very thin line, and you just hope people get it and will change by it,” says Loretta Devine, who plays Aunt Missy Judson. “I think it’s hard to watch for white people as much as for us.”

Musical director Coleman, who has an extensive background working with such artists as Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight, Barry White and the Temptations, felt the problems with “Purlie” were the lack of cultural authenticity and that it was stuck in time. “When I listened to the cast album, the music was extremely dated,” he says. “The first thing I heard was Anglo-Saxons in the pit. I heard excellent bass players and excellent drummers, but I also heard that they were white.”

“ ‘Purlie’ has been around, but it hasn’t seen a lot of main-stage productions since leaving Broadway, and one of the reasons is because of the music,” he continues. “You’re looking for Sammy Davis Jr. to come out any time in a mod outfit.”

But Epps is betting on “Purlie” to overcome these challenges, and, who knows, maybe even to return the black musical to Broadway. The trick, he says, is balance. “They weren’t hammering it in then, and I don’t think you should do that now. I think the challenge of doing the show well is to find that balance, to make sure that you expose some of those political issues but also get the humor and make it entertaining.”

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‘Purlie’

Where: Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Ave., Pasadena

When: 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, 5 and 9 p.m. Saturdays, 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays

Ends: July 31

Price: $37-$53

Contact: (626) 356-PLAY