THE GERSHWINS' PORGY AND BESS is the classic American tale is set in the 1930s in Catfish Row, a neighborhood in Charleston, South Carolina. Bess, beautiful and troubled, turns to Porgy, the crippled beggar, in search of safety after her possessive lover Crown commits murder. As Porgy and Bess's love grows, their future is threatened by Crown and the conniving Sporting Life. This heartbreaking love story boasts some of the most famous and beloved works from the Great American Songbook, including: "Summertime," "Bess, You Is My Woman," "It Ain't Necessarily So" and "I Loves You, Porgy."
In the end, though, this is an approachable and heartfelt version of Porgy and Bess that showcases George Gershwin's glorious melodies and the bottomless talents of McDonald. Her Bess is a complex, three-dimensional figure both classic and contemporary, the stuff of Greek tragedy and of countless Lifetime movies. She's a scarred woman who defines herself by the men in her life — men who are too often abusive bullies. And when she encounters a big-hearted man worthy of her affections, she has too little self-esteem to assert her heart's truest desires or think herself worthy of her good fortune. And as played by McDonald with the full force of her vocal and acting abilities, Bess becomes an unforgettable and iconic American character. Bess, you is all of our woman now.
The show proves an especially winning vehicle for leading lady Audra McDonald. Where her dramatic soprano has seemed a little heavy or stiff in other musical-theater roles, she invests Bess' songs with both technical authority and a fluid, full-bodied sense of character that extends to her spoken lines. Tracing the drug-addled Bess' attempt to turn her life around under Porgy's loving guidance, McDonald is by turns tender and crass, droll and desperate, and always wrenchingly human. As Porgy, the less-celebrated Norm Lewis is a revelation. That the character walks with a cane here, rather than using the traditional goat cart, only emphasizes the contrast between his lame body and his bursting heart. Hobbling toward McDonald or carefully leaning in to embrace her, Lewis' eyes burn with a soulful urgency that matches his robust baritone.
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