The Color Purple
January 26, 2009 | Just thinking out loud
Celie and Nettie (LaToya London, American Idol finalist)
I remember sitting at my first symphony when I was in 3rd grade. I was mezmerized by the theatre. By the music. Much later I watched my first stage drama. Again, I was whisked away into a world of music, stage, and performers. I didn’t realize then that one day I would be a writer, and that this was a small taste of the power of story.
My sister has season tickets to the Performing Arts and when she called to offer me her seats for The Color Purple, I nearly danced!
I laughed out loud when Richard and I pulled up to park and we didn’t have the $5 between us needed to pay the attendant. After scrounging around in the car we found enough change and they let us in.
The last time Richard and I went to the PAC, we sat in the highest level–scary for a girl who doesn’t like heights. The characters were tiny and that level is the reason they sell binoculars. Now, our seats were 9 rows from the stage. I resisted the urge to break into celebration again. On the outside I look calm, composed. On the inside, joyfilled.
The theatre was packed, a diverse crowd of colorful clothing and interesting personalities. Some drank wine and wore fur. Others, like me were ordinary people sitting on the edge of her seat waiting for the curtains to draw.
The Color Purple isn’t an easy story to watch. All of the human frailties and human evil are paraded across the stage: incest; unfaithfulness; beating; loss; hypocrisy.
At times it was hard to watch, simply because I knew behind the script there really are real people questioning God as they face the harder aspects of life.
And yet I was also grateful because of the theme of love running through the story. Celie and her sister, Nettie. The love of a mom for her children, though taken from her arms. The search for God in spite of circumstances, and the revealing of His nature through the color purple.
It was a beautiful night. A gift. There were times I squirmed in my seat, wondering what it would feel like to be in the shoes of the character. Everything within me saying, “I wouldn’t stay there”. Like Sophie, saying “Heck no! I won’t be treated that way.” And yet I’ve never been in those shoes, so I check those thoughts and try to hear the heartbeat of the woman singing away in her pain.
It was a gift. Tickets I couldn’t afford. A night with Richard. . .
Watching a story unfold.
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