Broadway's dazzling 'Color Purple' stars Jennifer Hudson amid a trio of strong women
9 / 10
For the first time in its long history of dramatization, 'The Color Purple' has been afforded an incarnation fully in sync with one crucial aspect of Walker's original authorial intent -- that the audience must participate in the imaginative act in order to comprehend its richness of theme and story...Hudson's portrayal of Shug Avery is notable in the way it forces an audience to measure the extent and limits of its attraction to this glamorous siren with her life-affirming but hedonist ways. For those of us who watched Hudson in concert early in her career, this performance, which is vocally exquisite, shows the remarkable growth as an actress...But Hudson is not the performer who brings down the house...That work belongs to Cynthia Erivo, the British actress playing -- actually, inhabiting is the better word -- the role of Celie and who, better than the several other actresses I have seen play this role, captures not just the fullness of her pain but the stature of her resilience.
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