JoltBlog

Director John Doyle has been universally praised for removing dancing and scenery from the Broadway musical “The Color Purple.” But is stripping a big show down to concert scale really an upgrade? The austere approach papers over the flaws of the sprawling, overdrawn story about villainous men and determined, winning women. It doesn’t make the rambling piece a dramatically better musical. But because Alice Walker’s Pulitzer-winning 1982 novel delivered a durable message that America still needs to hear about resistance and empowerment, and because the show wraps those sentiments in crafty blues and gospel tunes, even this lean “The Color Purple” — the 2016 Tony Award winner for best revival, now at the Kennedy Center — flickers with powerhouse moments. [Read More]

I wanted revenge any way I could get it. Not traditional retribution per se, but pandemic-style travel vengeance. My travel dreams ground to dust over the past two years, I wanted to see a little bit more of the world, as if I could make up for lost time. My husband and I agreed that I would take a solo trip while he took our 5-year-old to his grandparents’ house in southwest France. [Read More]