By Jonathan Jones
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Fish are jumping and the cotton is high at the Richard Rodgers Theatre. Audra McDonald soars as Bess and Norm Lewis brings up the bottom in this well-rounded, full, and fun rendition of George Gershwin's classic American opera.
Trouble comes in the title - this is indeed an opera and not a musical as the production is billed, and thus, adding "The Gershwins'" to the title complicates matters as operas rarely if ever give credit to lyricists or librettists, not to mention that it leaves out the considerable original contributions of Dubose and Dorothy Heyward and the adaptation of Suzan-Lori Parks. None-the-less, director Diane Paulus leads the audience into an imaginatively realized Catfish Row, where strong characterization, harmonious music, and creative and fluid choreography come to life.
The weak link in this production is David Alan Grier, who plays Sporting Life as though he were channeling the Leading Player in Pippin. This is hugely unfortunate given that every time he comes on stage, he takes us out of the world. Like the sparse stage (walls designed to look like run down shacks that we might see littering the south today - someone should inform the designers that when these buildings were inhabited, people took great care to scrape the peeling paint and whitewash the shacks a-new as it was their home and not a relic of the past), I sat in the theatre wishing that the storm would blow him away.
Joshua Henry is every bit as brilliant as he was in The Scottsboro Boys, though he has significantly less to do here (playing Jake), but his strength and commanding performance was also a highlight.
The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess is playing at The Richard Rodgers Theatre. Tickets can be purchased here.
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