New-Fangled Preacher Man

A landmark in the history of the black musical on Broadway, Purlie brought to the stage the sounds of r&b, gospel, soul, and pop, combining them with the sound of traditional Broadway. It also brought to Broadway in sizable numbers a new black audience, paving the way for such shows as The Wiz and Raisin.

The musical was based on Purlie Victorious, Ossie Davis's 1961 Broadway satire of race relations and of Uncle Tom and old-plantation stereotypes. Set in South Georgia in "the recent past," the plot introduces us to young preacher Purlie, who returns to his plantation home, seeking to recover money owed him by Cap'n Cochipee, the corrupt bigot who owns the plantation. Purlie wants the money so that he can reclaim and rebuild for his people a chapel called Big Bethel. Key to Purlie's scheme to acquire the money is an impersonation of Purlie's deceased relative by Lutiebelle, the young woman in love with the dynamic hero. As it turns out, Lutiebelle accidentally blows the scheme, and it falls to the Cap'n's own son, Charlie, to aid Purlie in gaining Big Bethel.

The musical's book represented the combined effort of Davis, director-producer Philip Rose, and lyricist Peter Udell. The music was by Gary Geld, and it was the first Broadway musical for Geld and Udell, proteges of Frank Loesser. In the roles created in Purlie Victorious by Davis and Ruby Dee, the lively Cleavon Little and the adorable Melba Moore both earned Tonys.

As Lutiebelle, Moore stopped and stole the show with her accounts of the title song and "I Got Love." Other outstanding items in the score included the opening number of each act, the first a rousing gospel piece, set at the Cap'n's funeral, "Walk Him Up the Stairs," the second a defiant anthem for the plantation cotton pickers, "First Thing Monday Morning." Then there's Purlie's introductory number, "New-Fangled Preacher Man"; the blues lament for Purlie and Missy, "Down Home"; and the dramatic duet for Lutiebelle and Purlie's sister-in-law, Missy, "He Can Do It."

Purlie opened at the Broadway Theatre on March 15, 1970 and played 688 performances. If it failed to return its investment during the run, it may have been because it was forced to transfer to the Winter Garden and then to the ANTA now the Virginia. The show returned to Broadway for a brief second engagement, in 1972 at the Billy Rose now the Nederlander Theatre, with Robert Guillaume in the lead. In 1981, Guillaume and Moore co-starred in a Rose-directed television version of the show that was released on home video.

Purlie came back this weekend, as an Encores! production, dedicated to the memory of Davis, who died in February. Encores!' Purlie has already been announced for a future life: Its director, Sheldon Epps, plans to take Purlie on to the Pasadena Playhouse and then to Chicago's Goodman Theatre.

Purlie always felt to this observer like something of a "chop-and-drop" musical, an abridgement of Purlie Victorious to make room for songs that don't always add much to the original play. Filled with pungent lines, what remains of that original play is one of Purlie's strengths. David Ives' concert adaptation cut a half-hour of book, and while all of the important plot points were made, some of the flavor was inevitably removed.

But that wasn't the chief shortcoming of director Sheldon Epps' production. Purlie was written as a rambunctious cartoon, and Epps had his cast playing everything far too realistically, seriously, and tastefully. Epps and most of the principals seemed afraid to wholeheartedly embrace the script's comic caricaturing of racial archetypes, although Doug E. Doug's amusing turn as Purlie's brother, Gitlow, sometimes approached the style required.

The problem was particularly acute with the leading man. A handsome, gifted actor, Blair Underwood's relatively square, naturalistic Purlie lacked the size, eccentricity, and extravagance that this preacher man requires. Underwood sang well enough, but he swallowed some of his lines and was unable to make Purlie's big fantasy-revenge monologue into the eleven-o'-clock spot it should be.

While Anika Noni Rose's Lutiebelle was winsomely appealing, it was rather too refined and cultivated, so it was never hilarious, as Moore's Lutiebelle most definitely was. And the always welcome John Cullum, who won a Tony for a later Geld-Udell-Rose Broadway musical, Shenandoah, was insufficiently horrific as the awful Cap'n.

Without the robust playing it requires, a show that can be at least intermittently uproarious came off on this occasion as distressingly mild. Nor did this Purlie appear to be one of the better prepared Encores! productions; at the first of five performances, there was a tentativeness about much of the playing.

Still, under the baton of guest conductor Linda Twine, the evening had its occasional compensations in the musical department. The opening "Walk Him Up the Stairs" was a rouser, with some stirring Ken Roberson All Shook Up choreography. If she didn't evince the sort of vocal pyrotechnics Moore displayed, Rose 2004 Tony winner for Caroline, or Change was winning in the title song and "I Got Love." And then there was the show's best song, "He Can Do It," which White and Rose made into the evening's showstopper.

One hopes that Epps can find a way to make his Purlie more vigorous and assured as it proceeds on to Pasadena and Chicago. Along the way, Epps may wish to take a look at Gone Are the Days, the 1963 film version of Purlie Victorious with the original Broadway cast, for its preservation of precisely the style of playing the piece requires. In terms of a Broadway revival, Purlie would be a high-risk venture, so it was a natural choice for an Encores! outing. But this Purlie never caught fire.