Review Roundup: Broadway-Bound THE GERSHWINS' PORGY AND BESS

A.R.T. American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) opened its 2011-12 season with The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess, by George Gershwin, DuBose and Dorothy Heyward, and Ira Gershwin last night, August 31. The adaptation by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks and Obie Award-winning composer Diedre L. Murray, directed by A.R.T. Artistic Director Diane Paulus, with choreography by Ronald K. Brown, began previews on August 17. The production will begin previews at the Richard Rogers Theatre on December 17, 2011 in anticipation of a January 12, 2012 Broadway opening.

Led by Audra McDonald as Bess and Norm Lewis as Porgy, the Company includes David Alan Grier as Sporting Life, Joshua Henry as Jake, Phillip Boykin as Crown, Nikki Renée Daniels as Clara, Bryonha Marie Parham as Serena, NaTasha Yvette Williams as Maria, Cedric Neal as Frazier, J.D. Webster as Mingo, Heather Hill as Lily, Phumzile Sojola as Peter, Nathaniel Stampley as Robbins, Joseph Dellger as the Coroner, and Christopher Innvar as the Detective. The ensemble also includes Allison Blackwell, Roosevelt André Credit, Trevon Davis, Joseph Dellger, Wilkie Ferguson, Alicia Hall Moran, Andrea Jones-Sojola, and Lisa Nicole Wilkerson.

For further information call 617-547-8300 or visit http://www.americanrepertorytheater.org

Ben Brantley, New York Times: Anyone who has seen or heard this show before will recognize it. This is "Porgy and Bess" for sure. But it's "Porgy and Bess" in limbo. Ms. McDonald's performance aside, all the new stratagems to specify and anchor the show's themes, people and plot have instead made it oddly abstract and diffuse.

But then there is Ms. McDonald, whose performance says: Yes, all these disparate fragments can be welded into a powerful single sensibility. Her scarred, shapely Bess is a heartbreaking mélange of audacity and trepidation. She is like a feral cat who has known years of abuse and is now frightened but tempted by the prospect of a real home. She also brings out the best in her leading men, Mr. Lewis (though her voice overpowers his in duets) and Mr. Boykin, whose characters speak to different longings in Bess. And she made me understand "Porgy and Bess" in a way I hadn't before.

Don Aucoin, Boston Globe: As it turns out, Sondheim needn't have worried. The ART's vibrant and stirring production of "The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess' makes some revisions, but Paulus and adapters Suzan-Lori Parks and Dierdre L. Murray are largely faithful to the spirit and the structure of the original. And in Audra McDonald, this production boasts a Bess for the ages.

"The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess,' which is already slated for Broadway in December, gets off to a strong start when Nikki Renée Daniels, as Clara, a fisherman's wife, delivers a soaringly beautiful rendition of the dreamy, languorous lullaby "Summertime,' with an adorable and amazingly poised baby in her arms.

Jeremy Gerard, Bloomberg: For most of Act I, Paulus offers remarkably static staging, though Ronald K. Brown's Sunday-service inspired dances are pleasant to watch. But the final 30 minutes of the 2 1/2 hour production are electrifying, as the four principals really get to strut their stuff and the ensemble as a whole finally comes to roiling life.

McDonald and Lewis don't carry the show alone. David Alan Grier's vampy Sporting Life and Phillip Boykin's vicious Crown are both beautifully sung. Among the many other soaring voices on display, Bryonha Marie Parkham and Andrea Jones-Sojola stand out as, respectively, Serena and Strawberry Woman.

Frank Rizzo, Variety: While entertaining, engaging and exceptionally well-acted, something is lost, too, in the scope of the score. The work's new passions -- while musical-theater "real" -- are now earth-bound, making it more "folk" than "opera."

Still, the handsome and in many ways appealing show, with its stars -- not the least of which is Audra McDonald giving another multi-layered and gorgeously sung perf -- and the familiarity of the Gershwin-Heyward score should prove to be a big box office draw. (The title "The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess" -- diminishing the Heyward contributions -- is a marketing misnomer.)

 

Photo Credit: Michael J. Lutch

 

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