AURORA | There’s a heart-rending moment toward the end of the Aurora Fox theater’s production of “The Color Purple” where any sense of place or time melts away.
Celie, the protagonist of the musical played by local singer and actress Sue Charles, who performs as SuCh, has spent the majority of the show facing a seemingly insurmountable amount of challenges. When the show opens in rural Georgia in 1909, Celie is 14 years old, and she’s already had two children by an abusive father. After she’s forced to give both of her children away, Celie is quickly married off to another abusive man simply named Mister, played by De Thomas. He calls her ugly. He hits her. He makes her take care of his brood of children from another wife.
Celie is a poor black woman growing up in the South of the early 20th century. She’s forced to stifle her own desires and feelings, especially after she forges a romantic relationship with her husband’s mistress. It feels like the odds are stacked far too high for any chance of redemption or happiness.
But then the song “I’m Here” comes in the second act, and SuCh belts out the lyrics: “I’ll stand as tall as the tallest tree and I’m thankful for every day that I’m given, both the easy and the hard ones I’m living.” The context evaporates. The character’s challenges and hardships take on a universal feel. It’s a transcendent moment, one that gets to the very heart of the show, according to director Donnie Betts.
“It’s a love of self, a love of family, a love of community,” said Betts, a veteran Aurora Fox director who’s put his stamp on gritty thrillers like Patrick Meyers’ “K2” and coming-of-age dramas like Lynn Nottage’s “Crumbs From the Table of Joy” at the theater. “It’s the evolution of Celie, her growth as a woman.”
The musical based on the 1982 novel by Alice Walker never veers away from the uglier parts of Celie’s story. It’s an unflinching take on Celie’s adolescence and adulthood in rural Georgia, and the Aurora Fox’s production never sacrifices the spirit of the drama. With its 26-member cast, its lush orchestration by musical director David Wohl and its choreography by Janice Guy-Sayles, “The Color Purple” is a powerful statement for the final show of the Aurora Fox theater’s 28th season.
“Celie is strong,” said SuCh, an Aurora resident who’s making her stage debut in this production. She regularly performs gigs across Denver and across the country, but this show offered a bridge to a venue in her own hometown. “I feel like playing Celie has made me a better person. In a time when black women are the lowest of the low, she’s able to rise up and find inner peace.”
Celie isn’t the only character in the show who undergoes a transition. Even Mister, who starts the drama as a boor and an abusive husband, finds a degree of redemption through Celie’s example. Thomas said his character’s transformation from a brute to a humble man looking for love has a deeper meaning.
“We still struggle with loving each other, with loving ourselves,” he said.
For Thomas, the struggle has roots in one of the darkest times in America’s history. It makes the musical’s message of affirmation and self-love all the more powerful.
“One of the great things about it is that you get to see people who are standing up and speaking up for themselves,” Thomas said. “They’re overcoming a lot of those demons and shadows of what slavery has done to us all.”
But the messages that undergird the most powerful moments of the play go beyond any one time or historical event. The show is packaged as “a musical about love,” and adaptors Marsha Norman, Brenda Russell, Alee Willis and Stephen Bray took that theme straight from Walker’s novel. The spirit of self-acceptance that comes through in the song “I’m Here” goes deeper than time or place, and it’s a message that resonated deeply with Nadiya Jackson, the 14-year-old Denver School of the Arts student who plays Young Nettie and stars in the ensemble.
“I think it’s when Celie first finds self-love, after all she’s been through,” Jackson said. “I think that’s the best part of this play. It’s what I’ve learned doing the show, accepting who I am and not worrying about anything that’s happening around me. It’s just beautiful.”
“The Color Purple”
Runs until May 12, Aurora Fox theater, 9900 E. Colfax Ave.
Tickets start at $28.
Information: 303-739-1970 or aurorafoxartscenter.org.